Early Greek philosophy

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“-KARLY
REEK PHILOSOPHY:

BY

JOHN BURNET, M.A., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNITED COLLEGE OF ST. SALVATOR
AND ST. LEONARD, ST. ANDREWS

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Περὶ μὲν τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐσκόπουν, τὰ δ᾽ ὄντα ὑπέλαβον
εἶναι τὰ αἰσθητὰ pdovov.—ARISTOTLE.

SECOND EDITION

| ὺς ΘΑ ΕΟ

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
] 1908

|

First Edition published April 1892.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

IT has been no easy task to revise this volume in such
a way as to make it more worthy of the favour with
which it has been received. Most of it has had to be
rewritten in the light of certain discoveries made since
the publication of the first edition, Shove all, that of
the extracts from Menon’s Ἰατρικά, which have furnished,
as I believe, a clue to the history of Pythagoreanism.
I trust that all other obligations are duly acknowledged
in the proper place.

It did not seem worth while to eliminate all traces
of a certain youthful assurance which marked the first
edition. I should not write now as I wrote at the age
of twenty-five; but I still feel that the main con-
tentions of the book were sound, so I have not tried
to amend the style. The references to Zeller and
“Ritter and Preller” are adapted throughout to the
latest editions. The Aristotelian commentators are
referred to by the pages and verses of the Berlin
Academy edition, and Stobaeus by those of Wachsmuth.

J. B.

St. ANDREws, 1908.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

No apology is needed for the appearance of a work
dealing with Early Greek Philosophy. The want of
one has long been felt; for there are few branches of
philology in which more progress has been made in
the last twenty years, and the results of that progress
have not yet been made accessible to the English
reader. My original intention was simply to report
these results; but I soon found that I was obliged to
dissent from some of them, and it seemed best to say
so distinctly. Very likely I am wrong in most of
these cases, but my mistakes may be of use in calling
attention to unobserved points. In any case, I hope
~ no one will think I have been wanting in the respect
due to the great authority of Zeller, who was the first
to recall the history of philosophy from the extrava-
gances into which it had wandered earlier in the century.
I am glad to find that all my divergences from his
account have only led me a little further in the path
that he struck out.
I am very sensible of the imperfect execution of
some parts of this work; but the subject has become
so large, and the number of authorities whose testimony

must be weighed is so great, that it is not easy for any
vil

viii EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

one writer to be equally at home in all parts of the |
field.

I have consulted the student’s convenience by
giving references to the seventh edition of Ritter and
Preller (ed. Schultess) throughout. The references to
Zeller are to the fourth German edition, from which
the English translation was made. I have been able
to make some use also of the recently published fifth
edition (1892), and all references to it are distinguished
by the symbol Z®. I can only wish that it had appeared
in time for me to incorporate its results more thoroughly.

I have to thank many friends for advice and sugges-
tions, and, above all, Mr. Harold H. Joachim, Fellow of
Merton College, who read most of the work before it

went to press,
J. Β. Ν᾿.

OXFORD, 1892.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I
Vow MILESIAN SCHOOL

CHAPTER II

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

CHAPTER III

&_HERAKLEITOS._OF EPHESOS

CHAPTER IV
SCOTS AEN OF ELEA-.

ia CHAPTER V
‘EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS . , ,

CHAPTER VI

“Ee OF KLAZOMENAI

γι PYTHAGOREANS

CHAPTER VII

37-84

85-142

143-I91

192-226

227-289

290-318

319-356

x EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER VIII

PAGES

~ THE YOUNGER ELEATICS ; ; Ἢ : . 357-379

CHAPTER Ix

“LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS : : : : . 380-404
CHAPTER X
ECLECTICISM AND REACTION . : ; ; . 405-418
APPENDIX
THE SOURCES ; : : ; : ς - 419-426

INDEX es τὺ ᾿ : ; ; + 427-433

ABBREVIATIONS

Arch. Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophie. Berlin,
1888-1908.

BEARE. Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition, by John I.
Beare. Oxford, 1906.

DIELS Dox. Doxographi graeci. Hermannus Diels, Berlin, 1879.

DIELS Vors. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, von Hermann
Diels, Zweite Auflage, Erster Band. Berlin, 1906.

GOMPERZ. Greek Thinkers, by Theodor Gomperz, Authorised
(English) Edition, vol. i. London, 1901.

JACOBY. Afpollodors Chronik, von Felix Jacoby (Philol. Unters.
Heft xvi.). Berlin, 1902.

Roi Historia Philosophiae Graecae, H. Ritter et L. Preller.
Editio octava, quam curavit Eduardus Wellmann.

Gotha, 1898. |

ZELLER. Die Philosophie der Griechen, dargestellt von Dr.
Eduard Zeller. Erster Theil, Fiinfte Auflage.
Leipzig, 1892.

xi

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ΓΙ

EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

INTRODUCTION

I, IT was not till the primitive view of the world The cosmo-
and the customary rules of life had broken down, that ph es
the Greeks began to feel the needs which philosophies ok
of nature and of conduct seek to satisfy. Nor were
those needs felt all at once. The traditional maxims 4
of conduct were not seriously questioned till the old
view of nature had passed away ; and, for this reason,
the earliest philosophers busied themselves mainly
with speculations about the world around them. In
due season, Logic was called into being to meet a fresh
want. The pursuit of cosmological inquiry beyond a
certain point inevitably brought to light a wide diver-
gence between science and common sense, which was
itself a problem that demanded solution, and moreover
constrained philosophers to study the means of defending
their paradoxes against the prejudices of the unscientific
many. Later still, the prevailing interest in logical
matters raised the question of the origin and validity
of knowledge ; while, about the same time, the break-
down of traditional morality gave rise to Ethics. The

period which precedes the rise of Logic and Ethics has
ὃ f } a I

j

‘The primitive
view of the

world.

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εὐ ες ce Pe re Rm |

iy: GS BARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

thus a distinctive character of its own, and may fitly be
treated apart.’

II. Even in the earliest times of which we have any
record, the primitive view of the world is fast passing

away. We are left to gather what manner of thing it
was from the stray glimpses we get of it here and there
in the older literature, to which it forms a sort of sombre
background, and from the many strange myths and
stranger rites that lived on, as if to bear witness of it to
later times, not only in out-of-the-way parts of Hellas,
but even in the “mysteries” of the more cultivated
states. So far as we can see, it must have been essen-
tially a thing of shreds and patches, ready to fall in
pieces as soon as stirred by the fresh breeze of a larger
experience and a more fearless curiosity. The only
explanation of the world it could offer was a wild tale
of the origin of things. Such a story as that of
Ouranos, Gaia, and Kronos belongs plainly, as Mr.
Lang has shown in Custom and Myth, to the same
level of thought as the Maori tale of Papa and Rangi;

while in its details the Greek myth is, if anything, the

more savage of the two.

We must not allow ourselves to be misled by meta-
phors about “the childhood of the race,” though even
these, if properly understood, are suggestive enough.
Our ideas of the true state of a child’s mind are apt to be
coloured by that theory of antenatal existence which has —
found, perhaps, its highest expression in Wordsworth’s

? It will be observed that Demokritos falls outside the period thus
limited. The common practice of treating this younger contemporary of
Sokrates along with the ‘‘ pre-Socratic, philosophers” obscures the true
course of historical development. Demokritos comes after Protagoras,
and his theory is already conditioned by the epistemological problem.

(See Brochard, ‘‘ Protagoras et Démocrite,” Arch. ii. p. 368.) He has alsoa
regular theory of conduct (E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. iv. § 514 n.).

INTRODUCTION 3

Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. We transfer these
ideas to the race generally, and are thus led to think
of the men who made and repeated myths as simple,
innocent creatures who were somehow nearer than we are
to the beginning of things, and so, perhaps, saw with a
clearer vision. A truer view of what a child’s thoughts
really are will help to put us on the right track. Left
to themselves, children are often tormented by vague
terrors of surrounding objects which they fear to confide
to any one. Their games are based upon an animistic
theory of things, and they are great believers in luck
and in the lot. They are devotees, too, of that “ cult of
odds and ends” which is fetishism ; and the unsightly
old dolls which they often cherish more fondly than
the choicest products of the toy-shop, remind us
forcibly of the ungainly stocks and stones which
Pausanias found in the Holy of Holies of many a
stately Greek temple. At Sparta the Tyndaridai were
a couple of boards, while the old image of Hera at
Samos was a roughly-hewn log.)

On the other hand, we must remember that, even
in the earliest times of which we have any record, the
world was already very old. Those Greeks who first
tried to understand nature were not at all in the
position of men setting out on a hitherto untrodden
path, There was already in the field a tolerably
consistent view of the world, though no doubt it was
rather implied and assumed in ritual and myth than
distinctly realised as such. The early thinkers did a
far greater thing than merely to make a beginning.

By turning their backs on the savage view of things,

1 See E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 64; Menzies, History of
Religion, pp. 272-276.

Traces of the
>rimitive
_ view in early
᾿ς iterature.

4 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

they renewed their youth, and with it, as it proved, the
youth of the world, at a time when the world seemed
in its dotage.

The marvel is that they were able to do this so
thoroughly as they did. A savage myth might be pre-
served here and there to the scandal of philosophers ;
fetishes, totems, and magic rites might lurk in holes and
corners with the moles and with the bats, to be unearthed
long afterwards by the curious in such matters. But
the all-pervading superstition, which we call primitive
because we know not how or whence it came, was gone
for ever ; and we find Herodotos noting with unfeigned
surprise the existence among “ barbarians” of beliefs
and customs which, not so long ago, his own forefathers
had taught and practised quite as zealously as ever did
Libyan or Scyth. Even then, he might have found
most of them surviving on the “high places” of
Hellas.

III. In one respect the way had been prepared
already. Long before history begins, the colonisation
of the islands and the coasts of Asia Minor had
brought about a state of things that was not favour-
able to the rigid maintenance of traditional customs and
ways of thought. -A myth is essentially a local thing,
and though the emigrants might give the names of
ancestral sanctuaries to similar spots in their new homes,
they could not transfer with the names the old senti-
ment of awe. Besides, these were, on the whole, stir-
ring and joyful times. The spirit of adventure is not
favourable to superstition, and men whose chief
occupation is fighting are not apt to be oppressed
by that “fear of the world” which some tell us is the
normal state of the savage mind. Even the savage

INTRODUCTION

becomes in great measure free from it when he is
really happy.

That is why we find so few traces of the primitive 1. Homer.
view of the world in Homer. The gods have become
frankly human, and everything savage is, so far as may
be, kept out of sight. There are, of course, vestiges of
early beliefs and practices, but they are exceptional.
In that strange episode of the Fourteenth Book of
the /ézad known as The Deceiving of Zeus we find a
number of theogonical ideas which are otherwise quite
foreign to Homer, but they are treated with so little
seriousness that the whole thing has even been re-
garded as a parody or burlesque of some primitive
poem on the birth of the gods. That, however, is to
mistake the spirit of Homer. He finds the old myth
ready to his hand, and sees in it matter for a “ joyous
tale,” just as Demodokos did in the loves of Ares and
Aphrodite. There is no antagonism to traditional
views, but rather a complete detachment from them.

It has often been noted that Homer never speaks
of the primitive custom of purification for bloodshed.
The dead heroes are burned, not buried, as the kings of
continental Hellas were. Ghosts play hardly any part.
In the //ad we have, to be sure, the ghost of Patroklos,
in close connexion with the solitary instance of human
sacrifice in Homer. All that was part of the traditional
story, and Homer says as little about it as he can.
There is also the Wekyia in the Eleventh Book of the
Odyssey, which has been assigned to a late date on the
ground that it contains Orphic ideas. The reasoning
does not appear cogent. As we shall see, the Orphics
did not so much invent new ideas as revive old ones,
and if the legend took Odysseus to the abode of the

See ππἀμὰ

2. Hesiod.

6 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

dead, that had to be described in accordance with the
accepted views about it.

In fact, we are never entitled to infer from Homer's
silence that the primitive view was unknown to him.
The absence of certain things from the poems is due.
to reticence rather than ignorance; for, wherever
anything to his purpose was to be got from an old
story, he did not hesitate to use it. On the other
hand, when the tradition necessarily brought him into
contact with savage ideas, he prefers to treat them with
reserve. We may infer, then, that at least in a certain
society, that of the princes for whom Homer sang, the
primitive view of the world was already discredited by
a comparatively early date.’

IV. When we come to Hesiod, we seem to be in
another world. We hear stories of the gods which are
not only irrational but repulsive, and these stories are
told quite seriously. Hesiod makes the Muses say:

_“We know how to tell many false things that are like

the truth ; but we know too, when we will, to utter what
is true.” This means that he was quite conscious of
the difference between the Homeric spirit and his own.
The old light-heartedness is gone, and it is important
to tell the truth about the gods. Hesiod knows, too,
that he belongs to a later and a sadder time than
Homer. In describing the Ages of the World, he inserts
a fifth age between those of Bronze and Iron. That
is the Age of the Heroes, the age Homer sang of. It
was better than the Bronze Age which came before it,

1 On all this, see especially Rohde, Psyche, pp. 14 sqq.

2 Hes. Zheog. 27. They are the same Muses who inspired Homer,
which means, in our language, that Hesiod wrote in hexameters and used
the Epic dialect. The new literary gezve has not yet found its appropriate
vehicle, which is elegy.

Ν

- INTRODUCTION 7

and far better than that which followed it, the Age of
Iron, in which Hesiod lives.! He also feels that he is
singing for another class. It is to shepherds and
husbandmen he addresses himself, and the princes for
whom Homer sang have become ‘remote persons who
give “crooked dooms.” For common men there is no
hope but in hard, unceasing toil. It is the voice of the
people we now hear for the first time, and of a people
for whom the romance and splendour of the Greek
Middle Ages meant nothing. The primitive view of the
world had never really died out among them ; so it was
natural for their first spokesman to assume it in his
poems. That is why we find in Hesiod these old,
savage tales, which Homer disdained to speak of.

Yet it would be wrong to see in the Theogony a
mere revival of the old superstition. Nothing can ever
be revived just as it was; for in every reaction there is
a polemical element which differentiates it completely
from the earlier stage it vainly seeks to reproduce.
Hesiod could not help being affected by the new
spirit which trade and adventure had awakened over the
sea, and he became a pioneer in spite of himself. The
rudiments of what grew into Ionic science and history
are to be found in his poems, and he really did more
than any one to hasten that decay of the old ideas which
he was seeking to arrest! The Z7heogony is an attempt
to reduce all the stories about the gods into a single
system, and system is necessarily fatal to so wayward

‘a thing as mythology. Hesiod, no less than Homer,

teaches a~panhellenic polytheism ; the only difference

1 There is great historical insight here. It was Hesiod, not our
modern historians, who first pointed out that the “Ὁ Greek Middle Ages
were a break in the normal development.

‘

8 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

is that with him this is more directly based on the
legends attached to the local cults, which he thus sought
to invest with a national significance. The result is that
the myth becomes primary and the cult secondary, a
complete inversion of the primitive relation. _Herodotos
tells us that it was Homer and Hesiod who made a
theogony for the Hellenes, who gave the gods their
names, and distributed among them their offices and
arts,’ and it is perfectly true. The Olympian pantheon
took the place of the old local gods in men’s minds, and |
\ this was as much the doing of Hesiod as of Homer.
Li The ordinary man had no ties to this company of gods,
but at most to one or two of them; and even these ἡ
; / he would hardly recognise in the humanised figures,
detached from all local associations, which poetry had
substituted for the older objects of worship. The gods
of Greece had become a splendid subject for art ; but
they came between the Hellenes and their ancestral
religions. They were incapable of satisfying the needs
d of the people, and that is the secret of the religious
: revival which we shall have to consider in the sequel.
| Cosmogony. ΡΝ. Nor is it only in this way that Hesiod shows
himself a child of his time. His Theogony is at the
same time a Cosmogony, though it would seem that
᾿ here he was following others rather than working out
a thought of his own. At any rate, he only mentions
the two great cosmogonical figures, Chaos and Eros,
and does not really bring them into connexion with
his system. The conception of Chaos represents a
distinct effort to picture the beginning of things. It is
not a formless mixture, but rather, as its etymology
indicates, the yawning gulf or gap where nothing is as

1 Herod. ii. 53.

Po

INTRODUCTION 9

yet. We may be sure that this is not primitive.
Savage man does not feel called upon to form an idea
of the very beginning of all things; he takes for
granted that there was something to begin with. The
other figure, that of Eros, was doubtless intended to
explain the impulse to production which gave rise to
the whole process. That, at least, is what the Maoris
mean by it, as may be seen from the following
remarkable passage? :—

From the conception the increase,
From the increase the swelling,
From the swelling the thought,
From the thought the remembrance,
From the remembrance the desire.
The word became fruitful,
It dwelt with the feeble glimmering,
It brought forth the night.

Hesiod must have had some such primitive speculation
to work on, but he does not tell us anything clearly
on the subject.

We have records of great activity in the production
of cosmogonies during the whole of the sixth century
ΒΟ, and we know something of the systems of
Epimenides, Pherekydes,> and Akousilaos. As there
were speculations of this kind even before Hesiod, we
need have no hesitation in believing that the earliest
Orphic cosmogony goes back to that century too.’

1 The word χάος certainly means the “‘ gape” or “ yawn,” the Orphic
χάσμα πελώριον. Grimm compared it with the Scandinavian Ginnunga- Gap,

2 Quoted from Taylor's Mew Zealand, pp. 110-112, by Mr. Andrew
Lang, in A4th, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. p. 52 (2nd ed.).

8 For the remains of Pherekydes, see Diels, Vorsokratiker, pp. 506
sqq. (1st ed.), and the interesting account in Gomperz, Greek 7) hinkers,
vol. i. pp. 85 sqq.

4 This was the view of Lobeck with regard to the so-called ‘* Rhapsodic
Theogony” described by Damaskios, and was revived by Otto Kern (De
Orphei Epimenidis Pherecydis Theogoniis, 1888). Its savage character is
the best proof of its antiquity. Cf. Lang, Adyth, Ritual, and Religion,
vol. i. chap. x.

a. α,,.» 4». a

General char-
acteristics of
early Greek

_ cosmology.

Vv

10 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The feature which is common to all these systems is
the attempt to get behind the gap, and to put Kronos
or Zeus in the first place. This is what Aristotle
has in view when he distinguishes the “theologians ”
from those who were half theologians and half philo-
sophers, and who put what was best in the begin-
ning.’ It is obvious, however, that this process is the

very reverse of scientific, and might be carried on

----

indefinitely; so we have nothing to do with the
cosmogonists im our present inquiry, except so far
as they can be shown to have influenced the course of
more sober investigations. Indeed, these speculations
are still based on the primitive view of the world,
and so fall outside the limits we have traced for
ourselves.

VI. What, then, was the step that placed the Ionian
cosmologists once for all above the level of the Maoris ἢ
Grote and Zeller make it consist in the substitution- of
impersonal causes acting according to law for personal
causes acting arbitrarily. But the distinction between

_ personal and impersonal was not really felt in antiquity,

and it is a mistake to lay much stress on it. It seems
rather that the real advance made by the scientific men
of Miletos was that they left off telling tales. They
gave up the hopeless task of describing what was when |

i as yet there was nothing, and asked instead what -all

things really are now.

The great principle which underlies all their
thinking, though it is first put into words by
Parmenides, is that Nothing comes into being out of
nothing, and nothing passes away into nothing. They
saw, however, that particular things were always

1 Arist. Met. N, 4. 1091 Ὁ 8.

INTRODUCTION ΕΣ

coming into being and passing away again, and from this
it followed that their existence was no true or stable
one. The only things that were real and eternal were
the original matter which passed through all these
changes and the motion which gave rise to them, to
- which was soon added that law of proportion or compen-
sation which, despite the continual becoming and passing
away of things, secured the relative permanence and
stability of the various forms of existence that go to
make up the world. That these were, in fact, the
leading ideas of the early cosmologists, cannot, of course,
be proved till we have given a detailed exposition of
their systems ; but we can show at once how natural it
was for such thoughts to come to them. It is always
7 the problem of change and eee. that first excites the
᾿ς wonder which, as Plato says, is the starting-point of
all philosophy. Besides this, there was in the Ionic
nature a vein of melancholy which led it to brood
upon the instability of things. Even before the
time of Thales, Mimnermos of Kolophon sings the
sadness_of change ; and, at a later date, the lament
of Simonides, that the generations of men fall like the
leaves of the forest, touches a chord already struck by
the earliest singer of Ionia Now, so long as men
could believe everything they saw was alive like them-
selves, the spectacle of the unceasing death and new
birth of. nature would only tinge their thoughts with a
certain mournfulness, which would find its expression
in such things as the Linos dirges which the Greeks
borrowed from their Asiatic neighbours ;* but when

ν΄

1 φἰπποηΐδες, fr. 85, 2 Bergk. 722. vi. 146.
2 On Adonis-Thammuz, Lityerses, Linos, and Osiris, see Frazer, Golden

Bough, vol. i. pp. 278 sqq.

Φύσις.

12 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

primitive animism, which had seen conscious life every-
where, was gone, and polytheistic mythology, which ~
had personified at least the more striking natural
phenomena, was going, it must have seemed that there
was nowhere any abiding reality. Nowadays we are
accustomed, for good and for ill, to the notion of
dead things, obedient, not to inner impulses, but solely
to mechanical laws. But that is not the view of the
natural man, and we may be sure that, when first it
forced itself on him, it must have provoked a strong
sense of dissatisfaction. Relief was only to be had
from the reflexion that as nothing comes from nothing,
nothing can pass away into nothing. There must,
then, be something which always is, something funda-
mental which persists throughout all change, and
ceases to exist in one form only that it may reappear in
another. It is significant that this something is spoken
of as “deathless” and “ageless.” *

VII. So far as JI know, no historian of Greek
philosophy has clearly laid it down that the word
which was used by the early cosmologists to express
this idea of a permanent and primary substance was
none other than φύσις ; and that the title Περὶ φύσεως,
so commonly given to philosophical works of the
sixth and fifth centuries B.C? means simply Cox-
cerning the Primary Substance. ~ Both Plato and
Aristotle use the term in this sense when they are

1 The Epic phrase ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως seems to have suggested this.
Anaximander applied both epithets to the primary substance (ΚΕ, P.
17 and 17a). Euripides, in describing the blessedness of the scientific life
(fr. inc. 910), says ἀθανάτου. . . φύσεως κόσμον ἀγήρω (R. P. 148 ς fin.).

2 I do not mean to imply that the philosophers used this title them-
selves; for early prose writings had no titles. The writer mentioned his
name and the subject of his work in the first sentence, as Herodotos, for
instance, does,

INTRODUCTION 13
discussing the earlier philosophy,’ and its history shows
clearly enough what its original meaning must have
been. In Greek philosophical language, φύσις always
means that which is primary, fundamental, and
persistent, as opposed to what is secondary, derivative,
and transient; what is “given,” as opposed to that
which is made or becomes. It is what is there to
begin with. It is true that Plato and his successors
also identify φύσις with the best or most normal con-
dition of a thing; but that is just because they held
the goal of any development to be prior to the process
by which it is reached. Such an idea was wholly un-
known to the pioneers of philosophy. They sought
the explanation of the incomplete world we know, not
in the end, but in the beginning. It seemed to them
that, if only they could strip off all the modifications
which Art and Chance had introduced, they would get
at the ultimately real; and so the search after φύσις,
first in the world at large and afterwards in human
society, became the panes interest of the age we have to
deal with. Aco,

The word ais, ΑΝ chic the early cosmologists
are usually said to have designated the object of their
search, is in this sense purely Aristotelian, It is
quite natural that it should be employed in the well-
known historical sketch of the First Book of the Jeta-
physics; for Aristotle is there testing the theories of
earlier thinkers by his own doctrine of the four causes.
But Plato never uses the term in this connexion, and
it does not occur once in the genuine fragments of the

1 Plato, Laws, 892 c 2, φύσιν βούλονται λέγειν γένεσιν (1.6. τὸ ἐξ οὗ
γίγνεται) τὴν περὶ τὰ πρῶτα (1.6. τὴν τῶν πρώτων). Arist. Phys. B, I.
193 ἃ 21, διόπερ οἱ μὲν πῦρ, οἱ δὲ γῆν, οἱ δ᾽ ἀέρα φασίν, οἱ δὲ ὕδωρ, οἱ δ᾽
ἔνια τούτων, οἱ δὲ πάντα ταῦτα τὴν φύσιν εἶναι τὴν τῶν ὄντων.

14 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

᾽

early philosophers. It is confined to the Stoic and
Peripatetic handbooks from which most of our know-
ledge is derived, and these simply repeat Aristotle.
Zeller has pointed out in a footnote’ that it would be
an anachronism to refer the subtle Aristotelian use
of the word to the beginnings of speculation. To
Anaximander ἀρχή could only have meant “begin-
ning,” and it was far more than a beginning that the
early cosmologists were looking for: it was the eternal
ground of all things.

There is one very important conclusion that follows
at once from the account just given of the meaning of
φύσις, and it is, that the search for the primary sub-
stance really was the thing that interested the Ionian
philosophers. Had their main object been, as
Teichmiiller held it was, the explanation of celestial
and meteorological phenomena, their researches would
not haye been called Περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίη,, but rather
Περὶ οὐρανοῦ or Περὶ μετεώρων. Ἀπά this we shall
find confirmed by a study of the way in which Greek
cosmology developed. The growing thought which
may be traced through the successive representatives
of any school is always that which concerns the
primary substance, while the astronomical and other
theories are, in the main, peculiar to the individual
thinkers. Teichmiiller undoubtedly did good service
by his protest against the treatment of these theories
as mere isolated curiosities. They form, on the con-

1 Zeller, p. 217, n. 2 (Eng. trans. p. 248, n. 2). See below, Chap. I.

PSF ἃς

2 We have the authority of Plato for giving them this name. Cf. Phd.
96 « 7, ταύτης τῆς σοφίας ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν. So, in the
fragment of Euripides referred to on p. 12, n. 1, the man who discerns
“the ageless order of immortal vous” is referred ‘to as ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας
ἔσχε μάθησιν.

INTRODUCTION 1:55

trary, coherent systems which must be looked at as
wholes. But it is none the less true that Greek
philosophy began, as it ended, with the search for what ν'
was abiding in the flux of things. |
» VIII. But how.could this give back to nature the Motion and
life of which it had been robbed by advancing know-
ledge? Simply by making it possible for the life
that had hitherto been supposed to reside in each
particular thing to be transferred to the one thing
of which all others were passing forms. The very
process of birth, growth, and decay might now be
regarded as the unceasing activity of the one ultimate
reality. Aristotle and his followers expressed this by
saying that the early cosmologists believed in an
“eternal motion,” and in substance this is correct;
though it is not probable that they said anything
about the eternal motion in their writings. It is more
likely that they simply took it for granted. In early-
times, it is not movement but rest that has to be
‘accounted for, and we may be sure that the eternity
of motion was not asserted till it had been denied.
As we shall see, it was Parmenides who first denied
it. The idea of a single ultimate substance, when ,
thoroughly worked out, seemed to leave no room for
motion; and after the time of Parmenides, we do
find that philosophers were concerned to show how ἢ
it began. Αἱ first, this would not seem to require,
explanation at all. κ᾿

Modern writers sometimes give the name of
Hylozoism to this way of thinking, but the term is
apt to. “be misleading. It suggests theories which deny
the separate reality of life and spirit, whereas, in the
days of Thales, and even far later, the distinction

} tive view of

16 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

between matter and spirit had not been felt, still less
formulated in such a way that it could be denied.
The uncreated, indestructible reality of which these
early thinkers tell us was a body, or even matter, if we
choose to call it so; but it was not matter in the
sense in which matter is opposed to spirit. - *

The downfall *1X. We have indicated the main characteristics of
ΠΡ the primitive view of the world, and we have sketched
aires rorid. in outline the view which displaced it; we must now
consider the causés which led to the downfall of the
one and the rise of the other. Foremost among these
was undoubtedly the widening of the Greek horizon
occasioned by the great extension of maritime enter-
prise which followed the decay of the Phoenician naval
supremacy. The scene of the old stories had, as a
rule, been laid just outside the boundaries of the world
known to the men who believed them. Odysseus does
not meet with Kirke or the Kyklops or the Sirens
in the familiar Aegean, but in regions which lay
beyond the ken of the Greeks at the time the Odyssey -
was composed. Now, however, the West was begin-
ning to be familiar too, and the fancy of the Greek
explorers led them to identify the lands which they
discovered with the places which the hero of the
national fairy-tale had come to in his wanderings. It
was soon discovered that the monstrous beings in
question weré no longer to be found there, and the
belief grew up that they had never been there at all.
So, too, the Milesians had settled colonies all round the
Euxine. The colonists went out with ᾿Αργὼ πᾶσι
μέλουσα in their minds ; and, at the same time as they
changed the name of the Inhospitable to the Hospit-
able Sea, they logalised the “far country” (aia) of the

INTRODUCTION 17

primitive tale, and made Jason fetch the Golden Fleece
from Kolchis. Above all, the Phokaians had explored
the Mediterranean as far as the Pillars of Herakles,
and the new knowledge that the “ endless paths” of
the sea had boundaries must have moved men’s minds
in muchhe same way as the discovery of America did
in later days. A single example will illustrate the
process which was always going on. According to the
primitive view, the heavens were supported by a giant
called Atlas. No one had ever seen him, though he
was supposed to live in Arkadia. The Phokaian ex-
plorers identified him with a cloud-capped mountain in
Africa, and once they had done this, the old belief was
doomed. It was impossible to go on believing in a
god who was also a mountain, conveniently situated
for the trader to steer by,,as he sailed to Tarshish in
quest of silver.
X. But by far the most important question we have Alleged _
2 Ξ Oriental origin

to face is that of the nature and extent of the influence of philosophy.
exercised by what we call Eastern wisdom on the
Greek mind. It is a common idea even now that the
Greeks in some way derived their philosophy from
Egypt and Babylon, and we must therefore try to
understand as clearly as possible what such a state-
ment really means. To begin with, we must observe
that no “writer of the period during which Greek
philosophy flourished knows anything at all of its
having come from the East. Herodotos would not
have omitted to say so, had he ever heard of it; for it
would have confirmed his own belief in the Egyptian
origin of Greek religion and civilisation.’ Plato, who

1 Herod, i. 163.
3. All he can say is that the worship of Dionysos and the doctrine of
transmigration came from Egypt (ii. 49, 123). We shall see that both these
2

18 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

had avery great respect for the Egyptians on other
grounds, distinctly implies that they were a business-
like rather than a philosophical people.’ Aristotle
speaks only of the origin of mathematics in Egypt? (a
point to which we shall return), though, if he had
known of an Egyptian philosophy, it would have suited
his argument better to mention that. It is not till a
far later date, when Egyptian priests and Alexandrian
Jews began to vie with one another in discovering the
sources of Greek philosophy in their own past, that we
first have definite statements to the effect that it came
from Phoenicia or Egypt. -Here, however, we must
carefully note two things. In the first place, the word
“philosophy” had come by that time to include
theology of a more or less mystical type, and was even
applied to various forms of asceticism.’ In the second
place, the so-called Egyptian philosophy was only
arrived at by a process of turning primitive myths into
allegories. We are still able to judge Philo’s Old
Testament interpretation for ourselves, and we may be
sure that the Egyptian allegorists were even more
arbitrary ; for they had far less promising material to
work on. Nothing can be more savage than the myth
of Isis and Osiris ;* yet it is first interpreted accord-

statements are incorrect, and in any case they do not imply anything
directly as to philosophy.

1 In Rep. 435 6, after saying that τὸ θυμοειδές is characteristic of the
Thracians and Scythians, and τὸ φιλομαθές of the Hellenes, he refers us to
Phoenicia and Egypt for τὸ φιλοχρήματον. Inthe Laws, where the Egyptians
are so strongly commended for their conservatism in matters of art, he says
(747 Ὁ 6) that arithmetical studiesare valuableonlyif we remove all ἀνελευθερία
and φιλοχρηματία from the souls of the learners. Otherwise, we produce
πανουργία instead of σοφία, as we can see that the Phoenicians, the Egyptians,
and many other peoples do. 5 Arist. Met, A, I. 981 Ὁ 23.

3 See Zeller, p. 3, ἢ. 2. Philo applies the term πάτριος φιλοσοφία to the
theology of the Essenes and Therapeutai.

* On this, see Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. p. 135.

INTRODUCTION 19

ing to the ideas of later Greek philosophy, and then
declared to be the original source of that philosophy.
This method of interpretation may be said to
culminate with the Neopythagorean Noumenios, from
whom it passed to the Christian Apologists. It is
Noumenios who asks, “ What is Plato, but Moses speak-
ing Attic?” * It seems likely, indeed, that he was think-
ing of certain marked resemblances between Plato’s
Laws and the Levitical Code when he said this—
resemblances due to the fact that certain primitive
legal ideas are similarly modified in both; but in any
case Clement and Eusebios give the remark a far wider
application.” At the Renaissance, this absurd farrago
was revived along with everything else, and certain
ideas derived from the Praeparatio Evangelica continued
for long to colour accepted views on the subject.
Even Cudworth speaks complacently of the ancient
“Moschical or Mosaical philosophy” taught by Thales
and Pythagoras.* It is important to realise the true
origin of this deeply-rooted prejudice against the
originality of the Greeks. It does not come from
DA ees researches into the beliefs of ancient peoples ;
or thesé have disclosed absolutely nothing in the way of
ν᾿ evidence for a Phoenician or Egyptian philosophy. It is
a mere residuum of the Alexandrian passion for allegory.

1 Noumenios, fr. 13 (R. P. 624), Τί γάρ ἐστι Πλάτων ἢ Μωυσῆς ἀττικίζων ;

2 Clement (Strom. i. p. 8, 5, Stahlin) calls Plato ὁ ἐξ ‘Ef
φιλόσοφος.

3 We learn from Strabo (xvi. p. 757) that it was Poseidonios who
introduced Mochos of Sidon into the history of philosophy. He attributes
the atomic theory to him. His identification with Moses, however, is a
later tour de force. Philon of Byblos published what purported to be a
translation of an ancient Phoenician history by Sanchuniathon, which was
used by Porphyry and afterwards by Eusebios. How familiar all this
became, is shown by the speech of the stranger in the Vicar of Wakefield,
chap. xiv.

20 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Of course no one nowadays would rest the case

for the Oriental origin of Greek philosophy on the

evidence of Clement or Eusebios; the favourite
argument in recent times has been the analogy of the
arts and religion. We are seeing more and more, it is
said, that the Greeks derived their art and many of
their religious ideas from the East; and it is urged
that the same will in all probability prove true of their
philosophy. This is a specious argument, but not
in the least conclusive. It ignores altogether the
essential’ difference in the way these things are trans-
mitted from people to people. Material civilisation
and the arts may pass easily from one people to
another, though they have not a common language,
and certain simple religious ideas can be conveyed by
ritual better than in any other way. Philosophy, on
the other hand, can only be expressed in abstract
language, and it'can only be transmitted by educated
men, whether by means of books or oral teaching.

' Now we know of no Greek, in the times we are dealing

with, who knew enough of any Oriental language to
read an Egyptian book or even to listen to the dis-
course of an Egyptian priest, and we never hear till
a late date of Oriental teachers who wrote or spoke in
Greek. The Greek traveller in Egypt would no doubt
pick up a few words of Egyptian, and it is certain that
somehow or other the priests could make themselves
understood by the Greeks. They were able to
rebuke Hekataios for his family pride, and Plato
tells a story of the same sort at the beginning of
the Zzmaeus.' But they must have made use of
interpreters, and it is impossible to conceive of

1 Herod. ii. 143; Plato, Zim. 22 Ὁ 3.

Agi INTRODUCTION 21

philosophical ideas being communicated through an
uneducated dragoman.!

But really it is not worth while to ask whether the
communication of philosophical ideas was possible or
not, till some evidence has been produced that any of
these peoples had a philosophy to communicate. No
such evidence has yet been discovered, and, so far as
we know, the Indians were the only people besides the
Greeks who ever had anything that deserves the name.
No one now will suggest that Greek philosophy came
from India, and igdeed everything points to the con-
clusion that Indian philosophy came from Greece.
The chronology of Sanskrit literature is an extremely
difficult subject; but, so far as we can see, the great
Indian systems are later in date than the Greek
philosophies which they most nearly resemble. Of

~

course the mysticism of the Upanishads and of
Buddhism were of native growth and profoundly in-
fluenced philosophy, but they were not themselves
philosophy in any true sense of the word.” :

XI. It would, however, be another thing to say that Egyptian
mathematics.

. {Greek philosophy originated quite independently of
Oriental influences. The Greeks themselves believed

1 Gomperz’s ‘‘ native bride,” who discusses the wisdom of her people
with her Greek lord (Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 95), does not convince me
either. She would probably teach her maids the rites of strange goddesses ;
but she would not be likely to talk theology with her husband, and still
less philosophy or science. The use of Babylonian as an international
language will account for the fact that the Egyptians knew something of
Babylonian astronomy ; but it does not help us to explain how the Greeks
could communicate with the Egyptians. It is plain that the Greeks did
not even know of this international language; for it is just the sort of
thing they would have recorded with interest if they had. In early days,
they may have met with it in Cyprus, but that was apparently forgotten.

_. 3 For the possibility that Indian philosophy came from Greece, see
Weber, Die Griechen in Indien (Berl. Sitzb. 1890, pp. 901 sqq-), and
Goblet d’Alviella, Ce gue /’ Inde doit ἃ la Gréce (Paris, 1897).

22 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

their mathematical science to be of Egyptian origin,
and they must also have known something of Baby-
lonian astronomy. It cannot be an accident that
philosophy originated in onta” just at the time when
communication with these two countries was easiest,
and it is significant that the very man who was said
to have introduced geometry from Egypt is also re-
garded as the first of the philosophers. It thus
becomes very important for us to discover, if we can,
what Egyptian mathematics meant. We shall see
that, even here, the Greeks were really original.

There is a papyrus in the Rhind collection at the
British Museum * which gives us an instructive glimpse
of arithmetic and geometry as these sciences were
understood on the banks of the Nile. It is the work
of one Aahmes, and contains rules for calculations both
of an arithmetical and a geometrical character. The
arithmetical problems mostly concern measures of corn
and fruit, and deal particularly with such questions as
the division of a number of measures among a given
number of persons, the number of loaves or jars of beer
that certain measures will yield, and the wages due
to the workmen for a certain piece of work. It
corresponds exactly, in fact, to the description of
Egyptian arithmetic which Plato has given us in the
Laws, where he tells us that the children learnt along
with their letters to solve problems in the distribution
of apples and wreaths to greater or smaller numbers of

1 IT am indebted for most of the information which follows to Cantor’s
Vorlesungen tiber Geschichte der Mathematik, vol. i. pp. 46-63. See also
Gow’s Short History of Greek Mathematics, 8§ 73-80; and Milhaud, Za
science grecque, pp. 91 sqq. The discussion in the last-named work is of
special value because it is based on M. Rodet’s paper in the Bulletin de la
Société Mathématique, vol. vi., which in some important respects supplements
the interpretation of Eisenlohr, on which the earlier accounts depend.

INTRODUCTION 23

people, the pairing of boxers and wrestlers, and so
forth. This is clearly the origin of the art which the
Greeks called λογιστική, and they certainly borrowed
that from Egypt; but there is not the slightest trace
of what the Greeks called ἀριθμητική, or the scientific
study of numbers.

The geometry of the Rhind papyrus is of a similarly
utilitarian character, and Herodotos, who tells us that
Egyptian geometry arose from the necessity of measur-~
ing the land afresh after the inundations, is obviously
far nearer the mark than Aristotle, who says that it
grew out of the leisure enjoyed by the priestly caste.”
We find, accordingly, that the rules given for calculating
areas are only exact when these are rectangular. As
fields are usually more or less rectangular, this would
be sufficient for practical purposes. The rule for
finding what is called the segt of a pyramid is, however,
on a rather higher level, as we should expect ; for the
angles of the Egyptian pyramids really are equal, and
there must have been some method for obtaining this
result. It comes to this. Given the “length across
the sole of the foot,” that is, the diagonal of the base,
and that of the pzvemus or “ridge,” to find a number
which represents the ratio between them. This is done
by dividing half the diagonal of the base by the “ ridge,”
and it is obvious that such a method might quite well
be discovered empirically. It seems an anachronism
to speak of elementary trigonometry in connexion with

1 Plato, Zaws, 819 Ὁ 4, μήλων τέ τινων διανομαὶ καὶ στεφάνων πλείοσιν
ἅμα καὶ ἐλάττοσιν ἁρμοττόντων ἀριθμῶν τῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ πυκτῶν καὶ
παλαιστῶν ἐφεδρείας τε καὶ συλλήξεως ἐν μέρει καὶ ἐφεξῆς καὶ ὡς πεφύκασι
γίγνεσθαι. καὶ δὴ καὶ παίζοντες, φιάλας ἅμα χρυσοῦ καὶ χαλκοῦ καὶ ἀργύρου
καὶ τοιούτων τινῶν ἄλλων κεραννύντες, οἱ δὲ καὶ ὅλας πὼς διαδιδόντες. In its
context, the passage implies that no more than this could be learnt in Egypt.

2 Herod. ii. 109; Arist-.Jet, A, 1. 981 b 23.

Ζ τς ee ΝΑ \

wd

24 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

a rule like this, and there is nothing to suggest that
the Egyptians went any further." That the Greeks
learnt as much from them, we shall see to be highly
probable, though we shall see also that, from a com-
paratively early period, they generalised it so as to
make it of use in measuring the distances of inaccessible
objects, such as ships at sea. It was probably this
generalisation that suggested the idea of a science of
geometry, which was really the creation of the Pytha-
goreans, and we can see how far the Greeks soon
surpassed their teachers from a remark of Demokritos
which has been preserved. He says (fr. 299): “I have
listened to many learned men, but no one has yet
surpassed me in the construction of figures out of lines
accompanied by demonstration, not even the Egyptian
harpedonapts, as they call them.”* Now the word
ἁρπεδονάπτης is not Egyptian but Greek. It means

”8 and it is a striking coincidence that

“ cord-fastener,
_ the oldest Indian geometrical treatise is called the
" Culvasutras or “rules of the cord.” These things point
to the use of the triangle of which the sides are 3, 4, 5,
and which has always a right angle. We know that
this triangle was used from an early date among the
Chinese and the Hindus, who doubtless got it from
Babylon, and we shall see that Thales probably learnt
the use of it in Egypt.* There is no reason whatever
for supposing that any of these peoples had in any
degree troubled themselves to give ἃ theoretical

1 For a fuller account of this method, see Gow, Short History of Greek
Mathematics, pp. 127 544. ; and Milhaud, Sczence grecque, p. 99.

2 Re Po. 188.

3 The real meaning of ἁρπεδονάπτης was first pointed out by Cantor.
The gardener laying out a flower-bed is the true modern representative of
the ‘‘ harpedonapts.”

4 See Milhaud, Sccence grecque, Ὁ. 103.

INTRODUCTION 25

demonstration of its properties, though Demokritos
would certainly have been able to do so. Finally,
we must note the highly significant fact that all
mathematical terms are of purely Greek origin.’

XII. The other source from which the Ionians Babylonian
directly or indirectly derived material for their cos- eee
mology was the Babylonian astronomy. There is no
doubt that the Babylonians from a very early date had
recorded all celestial phenomena like eclipses. They
had also studied the planetary motions, and determined
the signs of the zodiac. Further, they were able to
predict the recurrence of the phenomena they had
observed with considerable accuracy by means of
cycles based on their recorded observations. I can see
no reason for doubting that they had observed the
phenomenon of precession. Indeed, they could hardly
have failed to notice it; for their observations went
back over so many centuries, that it would be quite
appreciable. We know that, at a later date, Ptolemy
estimated the precession of the equinoxes at one degree
in a hundred years, and it is extremely probable that
this is just the Babylonian value. At any rate, it
- agrees very well with their division of the celestial
circle into 360 degrees, and made it possible for a
century to be regarded as a day in the “Great Year,”
a conception we shall meet with later on.’

1 The word πυραμίς is often supposed to be derived from the term
piremus used in the Rhind papyrus, which does not mean pyramid, but
“ridge.” It is really, however, a Greek word too, and is the name of a kind
of cake. The Greeks called crocodiles lizards, ostriches sparrows, and
obelisks meat-skewers, so they may very well have called the pyramids
cakes. We seem to hear an echo of the slang of the mercenaries that
carved their names on the colossus at Abu-Simbel.

2 Three different positions of the equinox are given in three different
Babylonian tablets, namely, 10°, 8° 15’, and 8° ο΄ 30” of Aries. (Kugler,
Mondrechnung, p. 103; Ginzel, X7io, i. p. 205.) Given knowledge of this

:

πα ας συν τνῳ

᾿" a”
7

26 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

We shall see that Thales probably knew the cycle
which the Babylonians used to predict eclipses (§ 2}5
but it would be a mistake to suppose that the pioneers
of Greek science had any detailed knowledge of the
Babylonian astronomy. It was not till the time
of Plato that even the names of the planets were
known,’ and the recorded observations were only
made available in Alexandrian times. But, even if
they had known these, their originality would remain.
The Babylonians studied and _ recorded celestial
phenomena for what we call astrological purposes, not
from any scientific interest. There is no evidence at
all that their accumulated observations ever suggested
to them the least dissatisfaction with the primitive
view of the world, or that they attempted to account
for what they saw in any but the crudest way. The
Greeks, on the other hand, with far fewer data to go
upon, made at least three discoveries of capital
importance in the course of two or three generations.
In the first place, they discovered that the earth is a
sphere and does not rest on anything. In the second

kind, and the practice of formulating recurrences in cycles, it is scarcely
conceivable that the Babylonians should not have invented a cycle for
precession. It is equally intelligible that they should only have reached a
rough approximation ; for the precessional period is really about 27,600 years
and not 36,000. It is to be observed that Plato’s ‘‘ perfect year” is also
36,000 solar years (Adam’s Repudiic, vol. ii. p. 302), and that it is probably
connected with the precession of the equinoxes. (Cf. 7772. 39 ἃ, a passage
which is most easily interpreted if referred to precession.) This suggestion
as to the origin of the ‘‘ Great Year ” was thrown out by Mr. Adam (of. cit.
p- 305), and is now confirmed by Hilprecht, 7e Babylonian Expedition of
the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1906).

1 In classical Greek literature, no planets but “Eoepos and ‘Ewo¢épos are
mentioned by name at all. Parmenides (or Pythagoras) first identified these
as a single planet (8 93). Mercury appears for the first time by name in
Tim, 38 6, and the other divine names are given in Zin. 987 Ὁ sq., where
they are said to be ‘* Syrian.” The Greek names Φαίνων, Φαέθων, Πυρόεις,
Φωσφόρος, Στίλβων, may be older, but this cannot be proved.

INTRODUCTION 27

place, they discovered the true theory of lunar and
solar eclipses ; and, in close connexion with this, they
came to see, in the third place, that the earth is not
the centre of our system, but revolves round it like the
other planets. Not very much later, certain Greeks
even took, at least tentatively, the final step of identify-
ing the centre round which the earth and the planets
revolve with the sun. These discoveries will be dis-
cussed in their proper place; they are only mentioned
here to show the gulf between Greek astronomy and
everything that had preceded it. The Babylonians
had as many thousand years as the Greeks had
centuries to make these discoveries, and it does not
appear that they ever thought of one of them. The
Originality of the Greeks cannot be successfully
questioned till it can be shown that the Babylonians
had even an incorrect idea of what we call the solar
system.

We may sum up all this by saying that the Greeks
did not borrow either their philosophy or their science
from the East. They did, however, get from Egypt
certain rules of mensuration which, when generalised, ©
gave birth to geometry; while from Babylon they —
learnt that the phenomena of the heavens recur in
cycles with the greatest regularity. This piece of
knowledge undoubtedly had a great deal to do with
the rise of science; for to the Greek it suggested
further questions such as the Babylonian did not
dream of."

1 The Platonic account of this matter is to be found in the Zpznomes,
986 e 9 sqq., and is summed up by the words λάβωμεν δὲ ὡς ὅτιπερ ἂν
“Ἕλληνες βαρβάρων παραλάβωσι, κάλλιον τοῦτο els τέλος ἀπεργάζονται (987 ἃ 9).

The point is well put by Theon (Adrastos), 2 χ2. p. 177, 20 Hiller, who
speaks of the Chaldaeans and Egyptians as ἄνευ φυσιολογίας ἀτελεῖς

The scientific
character of
the early ©
Greek cos-
mology.

28 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

XIII. It is necessary to say something as to the
scientific worth of the philosophy we are about to
study. We have just seen that the Eastern peoples
were, at the time of which we write, considerably richer
than the Greeks in accumulated facts, though these
facts had certainly not been observed for any scientific
purpose, and their possession never suggested a revision
of the primitive view of the world. The Greeks, how-
ever, stw.in them something that could be turned to
account; and they were never as a people slow to act
on the maxim, Chacun prend son bien partout ou i le
trouve. The most striking monument of this spirit
which has come down to us is the work of Herodotos;
and the visit of Solon-to-Croesus which he describes,
however unhistorical it may be, gives a very lively and
faithful picture of it. Croesus tells Solon that he has

heard much of “his wisdom and his wanderings,” and

how, from love of knowledge (φιλοσοφέων), he has
travelled over much land for the purpose of seeing
what was to be seen (Oewpins εἵνεκεν). The words
Gewpin, φιλοσοφίη, and ἱστορίη are, in fact, the catch-
words of the time, though they had, we must remember,
a somewhat different meaning from that which they
were afterwards made to bear at Athens." The idea
that underlies them all may, perhaps, be best rendered
in English by the word Curzoszty ; and it was just this
ποιούμενοι Tas μεθόδους, δέον ἅμα καὶ φυσικῶς περὶ τούτων ἐπισκοπεῖν "
ὅπερ οἱ παρὰ τοῖς “Ἕλλησιν ἀστρολογήσαντες ἐπειρῶντο ποιεῖν, τὰς παρὰ
τούτων λαβόντες ἀρχὰς καὶ τῶν φαινομένων τηρήσεις. The importance of
this last passage is that it represents the view taken at Alexandria, where
the facts were accurately known.

1 Still, the word θεωρία never wholly lost its early associations, and the
Greeks always felt that the θεωρητικὸς Bios meant literally ‘‘ the life of the

spectator.” Its special use, and the whole theory of the ‘‘ three lives,”
seem to be of Pythagorean origin. See my edition of Aristotle’s Z¢hzcs,

p- 19n.

INTRODUCTION 29

' great gift of curiosity, and the desire to see all the
wonderful things—pyramids, inundations, and so forth
—that were to be seen, which enabled the Greeks to pick
up and turn to their own use such scraps of knowledge
as they could come by among the barbarians. No
sooner did a Greek philosopher learn half a dozen
geometrical propositions, and hear that the phenomena
of ‘the heavens recur in cycles, than he set to work to
look for law everywhere in nature, and, with a splendid

audacity, almost amounting to ὕβρις, to construct a hw

system of the universe. We may smile, if we please, at
the strange medley of childish fancy and true scientific
insight which these Titanic efforts display, and some-
times we feel disposed to sympathise with the sages of
the day who warned their more daring contemporaries |
“to think the thoughts befitting man’s estate” (ἀνθρώπινα
φρονεῖν). But we shall do well to remember at the
same time that even now it is just such hardy anticipa-
tions of experience that make scientific progress possible,
and that nearly every one of the early inquirers whom)
we are about to study made some permanent addition.
to the store of positive knowledge, besides opening up.
new views of the world in every direction. |

There is no justification either for the idea that
Greek science was built up solely by more or less lucky
guesswork, instead of by observation and experiment.
The nature of our tradition, which mostly consists of
Placita—that is, of what we call “results ”—tends, no
doubt, to create this impression. We are seldom told
why any early philosopher held the views he did, and
the appearance of a string of “opinions” suggests
dogmatism. There are, however, certain exceptions to
the general character of the tradition; and we may

30 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

reasonably suppose that, if the later Greeks had been
interested in the matter, there would have been many
more. We shall see that Anaximander made some
remarkable discoveries in marine biology, which the
researches of the nineteenth century have fully con-
firmed (§ 21), and even Xenophanes supported one
of his theories by referring to the fossils and petrifactions
of such widely separated places as Malta, Paros, and
Syracuse (§ 59). This is enough to show that the
theory, so commonly held by the earlier philosophers,
_ that the earth had been originally in a moist state, was
ἙΝ not mythological in origin, but was Ῥαβεὰ on, or at
J any rate confirmed by, biological and palaeontological
observations of a thoroughly modern and _ scientific
type. It would surely be absurd to imagine that the
men who could make these observations had not the
curiosity or the ability to make many others of which
the memory is lost. Indeed, the idea that the Greeks .
were not observers is almost ludicrously wrong, as is

~ proved by two simple considerations. The anatomical
_ accuracy of Greek sculpture bears witness to trained
habits of observation, and those of the highest order,
while the fixing of the seasons by the heliacal rising
and setting of the stars shows a familiarity with
_, celestial phenomena which is by no means common
at the present day:’ We know, then, that the Greeks
could observe well in matters affecting agriculture,

urious about the world. Is it conceivable that they
| did not use their powers of observation to gratify that
curiosity? It is true, of course, that they had not our

ΡΣ and the arts, and we know that they were
ς

1 These two points are rightly emphasised by Staigmiiller, Beztrage zur
Gesch. der Naturwissenschaften im klassischen Altertume (Progr. Stuttgart,

1899, p. 8).

ee ee ae Ser TON ye ee 1.0 ΦΌΝΟΝ
: INTRODUCTION 31

instruments of precision; but a great deal can be
discovered by the help of very simple apparatus. It is
not to be supposed that Anaximander erected his
gnomon merely that the Spartans might know the
seasons.’

Nor is it true that the Greeks made no use οἱ
experiment. The rise of the experimental method
dates from the time when the medical schools began
to influence the development of philosophy, and
accordingly we find that the first recorded experiment
of a modern type is that of Empedokles with the
klepsydra. We have his own account of this (fr. 100),
and we can see how it brought him to the verge of
anticipating both Harvey and Torricelli. It is once
more inconceivable that an inquisitive people should
have applied the experimental method in a single
case without extending it to the elucidation of other

_ problems.

Of course the great difficulty for us is the geocentric
hypothesis from which science inevitably started, though
only to outgrow it in a surprisingly short time. So
long as the earth is supposed to be in the centre of
the world, meteorology, in the later sense of the word,
is necessarily identified with astronomy. It ,is difficult
for us to feel at home in this point of view, and indeed
we have no suitable word to express what the Greeks
at first called an οὐρανός. It will be convenient
to use the word “world” for it; but then we must
remember that it does not refer solely, or even chiefly,

-1 The gnomon was not a sundial, but an upright erected on a flat surface,
in the centre of three concentric circles. ‘These were drawn so that the
end of the gnomon’s shadow touched the innermost circle at midday on the
summer solstice, the intermediate circle at the equinoxes, and the outer-
most circle at the winter solstice. See Bretschneider, Die Geometrie
vor Euklid, p. 60.

32 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to the earth. The later word κόσμος bears witness to
the growth of scientific ideas. It meant at first the
marshalling of an army, and next the ordered constitu-
tion of a state. It was transferred from this to the
world because in early days the regularity and
constancy of human life was far more clearly seen than
the uniformity of nature. Man lived in a charmed
circle of law and custom, but the world around him
still seemed lawless. That, too, is why, when the
regular course of nature was first realised, no better
word for it could be found than δίκη. It is the same
metaphor which still lives on in the expression
“natural law.” ?

The science of the sixth century was mainly
concerned, then, with those parts of the world that
are “aloft” (τὰ μετέωρα), and these include, along
with the heavenly bodies, such things as clouds, rain-
bows, and lightning. That is how the heavenly bodies
came sometimes to be explained as ignited clouds, an
idea which seems astonishing to us. But we must
bear in mind that science inevitably and rightly began
with the most obvious hypothesis, and that it was
only the thorough working out of this that could show
its inadequacy. It is just because the Greeks were
the first people to take the geocentric hypothesis
seriously that they were able to go beyond it. Of
course the pioneers of Greek thought had no clear idea
of the nature of scientific hypothesis, and supposed
themselves to be dealing with ultimate reality. That
was inevitable before the rise of Logic. At‘the same

1 The term κόσμος seems to be Pythagorean in this sense. It was not
familiar even at the beginning of the fourth century. Xenophon speaks of
‘what the sophists call the κόσμος " (AZem. i. 11). For δίκη, see below,
88 14, 72.

INTRODUCTION 33

time, a sure instinct guided them to the right method,
and we can see how it was the effort to “save appear-
ances” ’* that really operated from the first. It is,
therefore, to those men that we owe the conception of
an exact science which should ultimately take in the
whole world as its object. They fancied—absurdly
enough, no doubt—that they could work out this
science at once. We sometimes make the same mistake

a ae

nowadays; and it can no more rob the Greeks of the
honour of having been the first to see the true, though
perhaps unattainable, end of all science than it can rob
our own scientific men of the honour of having brought
that end nearer than it was. It is still knowledge of
the kind foreseen and attempted by the Greeks that
they are in search of.

XIV. Theophrastos, the first writer to treat the Schools of
: ὃ ‘ philosophy.
history of Greek philosophy in a systematic way,”
represented the early cosmologists as standing to one
another in the relation of master and scholar, and as
members of regular societies. This has been regarded
by many modern writers as an anachronism, and
some have even denied the existence of “schools” of
philosophy altogether. Such a reaction against the
older view was quite justified in so far as it was directed
against arbitrary classifications like the “Ionic” and
“Italian” schools, which are derived through Laertios
Diogenes from the Alexandrian writers of “ Successions.”
But the express statements of Theophrastos are not

1 This phrase originated in the school of Plato. The method of research
in use there was for the leader to ‘‘ propound” (προτείνειν, προβάλλεσθαι)
it as a ‘‘ problem” (πρόβλημα) to find the simplest ‘‘ hypothesis” (τένων
ὑποτεθέντων) on which it is possible to account for and do justice to all the
observed facts (σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα). It was in its French form, saver les
apparences, that the phrase acquired the meaning it usually has now.

2 See Appendix, § 7.

3

34 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to be so lightly set aside. As this point is of great
importance, it will be necessary to elucidate it still
further before we enter upon our story.

The modern view really rests upon a mistaken idea
of the way in which civilisation develops. In almost
every department of life, we find that the corporation
at first is everything and the individual nothing. The
peoples of the East hardly got béyond this stage at
all; their science, such as it is, is anonymous, the
inherited property of a caste or guild, and we still see
clearly in some cases that it was once the same among
the Hellenes. Medicine, for instance, was originally the
“mystery ” of the Asklepiads, and it is to be supposed
that all craftsmen (δημιουργοί), amongst whom Homer
classes the bards (ἀοιδοί), were at first organised in
a similar way. What distinguished the Hellenes from
other peoples was that at a comparatively early date
these crafts came under the influence of outstanding
individuals, who gave them a fresh direction and a new
impulse. It is doubtless in some such way that we
should understand the relation of Homer to the
Homeridai. The Asklepiads at a later date produced
Hippokrates, and if we knew more of such guilds as the
Daidalids, it is likely we should find something of the
same kind. But this does not destroy the corporate
character of the craft; indeed, it rather intensifies it.
The guild becomes what we call a “school,” and the
disciple takes the place of the apprentice. That is a
vital change. A close guild with none but official
heads is essentially conservative, while a band of
disciples attached to a master they revere is the
greatest progressive force the world knows.

It is certain that the later Athenian schools were

3 INTRODUCTION 35

organised corporations, the oldest of which, the
Academy, maintained its existence as such for some
nine hundred years, and the only question we have to
decide is whether this was an innovation made in the
fourth century B.C., or rather the continuance of an old
tradition. As it happens, we have the authority of
Plato for speaking of the chief early systems as handed
down in schools. He makes Sokrates speak of “ the
men of Ephesos,” the Herakleiteans, as forming a
strong body in his own day,’ and the stranger of the
Sophist and the Statesman speaks of his school
as still in existence at Elea.” We also hear of

8 and no one, of course, can doubt

_ “ Anaxagoreans,”
that the Pythagoreans were a society. In fact, there
is hardly any school but that of Miletos for which we
have not external evidence of the strongest kind ; and
even as regards it, we have the significant fact that
Theogphrastos speaks of philosophers of a later date
as having been “associates of the philosophy of
Anaximenes,”* We shall see too in the first chapter
that the internal evidence in favour of the existence of
a Milesian school is very strong indeed. It is from
this point of view, then, that we shall now proceed to
consider the men who created Hellenic science.

1 Tht. 179 6 4, αὐτοῖς. . . τοῖς περὶ τὴν "Edecov. The humorous denial
that the Herakleiteans had any disciples (180 Ὁ 8, Ποίοις μαθηταῖς, ὦ
δαιμόνιε ;) implies that this was the normal and recognised relation.

2 Soph. 242 ἃ 4, τὸ. .. παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ᾿Ελεατικὸν ἔθνος. Cf. 2b. 216 a 3,
ἑταῖρον δὲ τῶν ἀμφὶ ἸΤαρμενίδην καὶ Ζήνωνα [ἑταίρων] (where ἑταέρων is
probably interpolated, but gives the right sense) ; 2178, 1, οἱ περὶ τὸν ἐκεῖ
τόπον.

3 Crat. 409 Ὁ 6, εἴπερ ἀληθῆ οἱ ᾿Αναξαγόρειοι λέγουσιν. φ'

4 Cf. Chap. VI. 8 122; and, on the whole subject, see Diels, ‘‘ Uber
die altesten Philosophenschulen der Griechen” in Phzlosophische Aufsatze
Eduard Zeller gewidmet (Leipzig, 1887).

' Σ

2 re
ry ΨΥ
be

Los
iP

CHAPTER.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL

1. IT was at Miletos that the earliest school of Miletos and
Lydia.

scientific cosmology haditshome. At the time it arose,
the Milesians were in an exceptionally favourable
position for scientific as well as commercial pursuits,
They had, indeed, come into conflict more than once
with the neighbouring Lydians, whose rulers were now
bent upon extending their dominion to the coast ; but,
towards the end of the seventh century B.c., Thrasy-
boulos, tyrant of Miletos, had succeeded in making terms
with King Alyattes, and an alliance was concluded
between them, which not only saved Miletos for the
present from a disaster like that which befell Smyrna,
but secured it against molestation for the future.
Even half a century later, when Croesus, resuming his
father’s forward policy, made war upon and conquered
Ephesos, Miletos was still able to maintain the old
treaty-relation, and never, strictly speaking, became
subject to the Lydians at all. We can hardly doubt
that the sense of security which this exceptional position
would foster had something to do with the rise of
scientific inquiry. Material prosperity is necessary as a
foundation for the highest intellectual effort ; and at this

es
37

f
ἢ

38 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

time Miletos was in possession of all the refinements of
life to a degree unknown in continental Hellas.

Nor was it only in this way that the Lydian
connexion would favour the growth of science at
Miletos. What was called Hellenism at a later date
seems to have been traditional in the dynasty of the
Mermnadai. There may well be some truth in the
statement of Herodotos, that all the “sophists” of the
time flocked to the court of Satdeis." The tradition
which represents{ Croesus as what we should call the
“patron” of Greek wisdom, was fully developed in the
fifth century ; and, however unhistorical its details may:
be, it must clearly have some sort of foundation in
fact. Particularly noteworthy is “the common tale
among the Greeks,” that Thales accompanied him on
his luckless campaign against Pteria, apparently in the
capacity of military engineer. Herodotos, indeed,
disbelieves the story that he diverted the course of
the Halys ;* but he does not attack it on the ground
of any antecedent improbability, and it is quite clear
that those who reported it found no difficulty in accept-
ing the relation which it presupposes between the
philosopher and the king.

1 Herod. i. 29. Some other points may be noted in confirmation of
what has been said as to the ‘‘ Hellenism” of the Mermnadai. Alyattes
had two wives, one of whom, the mother of Croesus, was a Karian ; the
other was an Ionian, and by her he had a son called by the Greek name
Pantaleon (zd. 92). The offerings of Gyges were pointed out in the
treasury of Kypselos at Delphoi (2d. 14), and those of Alyattes were one
of the “‘ sights” of the place (zd. 25). Croesus also showed great liberality
to Delphoi (26. 50), and to many other Greek shrines (#4. 92). He gave most
of the pillars for the great temple at Ephesos. The stories of Miltiades (vi.
- 37) and Alkmeon (74.125) should also be mentioned in this connexion.

2 Herod. i. 75. He disbelieves it because he had heard, probably from
the Greeks of Sinope, of the great antiquity of the bridge on the royal
road between Ankyra and Pteria (Ramsay, dsza Minor, p.29). Xanthos
recorded a tradition that it was Thales who induced Croesus to ascend
his pyre when he knew a shower was coming (fr. 19).

f THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 39

It should be added that the Lydian alliance would
greatly facilitate intercourse with Babylon and Egypt.
Lydia was an advanced post of Babylonian culture,
and Croesus was on friendly terms with the kings of
both Egypt and Babylon. It is noteworthy, too, that
Amasis of Egypt had the same Hellenic sympathies as
Croesus, and that the Milesians possessed a temple of
their own at Naukratis.’

I. THALES

2. There can be no doubt that the founder of the Origin,
Milesian school, and therefore the first of the cosmo-
logists, was Thales ;? but all we can really be said to
know of him comes from Herodotos, and the romance
of the Seven Wise Men was already in existence when
he wrote. He tells us, in the first place, that Thales
was of Phoenician descent, a statement which other
writers explained by saying he belonged to the Thelidai,
a noble house descended from Kadmos and Agenor.’
This is clearly connected with the view of Herodotos
that there were “ Kadmeians” from Boiotia among the
original Ionian colonists, and it is certain that there
really were people called Kadmeians in. several Ionic
cities.* Whether they were of Semitic origin is, of

1 Milesians at Naukratis, Herod. ii. 178, where Amasis is said to have
been φιλέλλην. He subscribed to the rebuilding of the temple at Delphoi
after the great fire (zd. 180).

2 Simplicius, indeed, quotes from Theophrastos the statement that
Thales had many predecessors (Dox. p. 475, 11). This, however, need not
trouble us; for the scholiast on Apollonios Rhodios (ii. 1248) tells us that

Theophrastos made Prometheus the first philosopher, which is merely an
application of Peripatetic literalism to a remark of Plato’s (PAz/ed. 16 ς 6).
Cf. Appendix, § 2..

3 Herod. i. 170 (R. P. 9 d.); Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9).

4 Strabo, xiv. pp. 633, 636; Pausan. vii. 2, 7. Priene was called
Kadme, and the oldest annalist of Miletos bore the name Kadmos, See
E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 158.

The eclipse
foretold by
Thales.

40 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

course, another matter. Herodotos probably mentions
the supposed descent of Thales simply because he was
believed to have introduced certain improvements in
navigation from Phoenicia." At any rate, the name
Examyes, which his father bore, lends no support to
the view that he was a Semite. It is a Karian name,
and the Karians had been almost completely assimilated
by the Ionians. On the monuments, we find Greek
and Karian names alternating in the same families, and
there is therefore no reason to suppose that Thales was
anything else than an ordinary Milesian citizen, though
perhaps with Karian blood in his veins.’

3. By far the most remarkable statement that
Herodotos makes about Whales is that he foretold the
eclipse of the sun which put an end to the war between
the Lydians and the Medes. Now, we may be sure
that he was quite ignorant of the true cause of eclipses.
Anaximander and his successors certainly were so,* and
it is incredible that the right explanation should once
have been given and then forgotten so soon. Even
supposing, however, Thales had known the cause of
eclipses, no one can believe that such scraps of
elementary geometry as he picked up in Egypt would
enable him to calculate one from the elements of the
moon’s path. Yet the evidence for the prediction. is

1 Diog. i. 23, Καλλίμαχος δ᾽ αὐτὸν oldev εὑρετὴν τῆς ἄρκτου τῆς μικρᾶς

λέγων ἐν τοῖς ᾿Ιάμβοις οὕτω----
καὶ τῆς ἁμάξης ἐλέγετο σταθμήσασθαι
τοὺς ἀστερίσκους, ἣ πλέουσι Φοίνικες.

2 See Diels, ‘‘ Thales ein'Semite?” (Arch. ii. 165 sqq.),'and Immisch, ‘Zu
Thales Abkunft” (2d. p. 515). The name Examyes occurs also in Kolophon
(Hermesianax, Leontion, fr. 2, 38 Bgk.), and may be compared with other
Karian names such as Cheramyes and Panamyes.

3 Herod. i. 74.

4 For the theories held by Anaximander and Herakleitos, see zz/ra,
88 19, 71.

: THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 41

too strong to be rejected off-hand. The testimony of
Herodotos to an event which must have happened
about a-hundred years before his own birth may,
perhaps, be deemed insufficient; but that of Xeno-
phanes is a very different matter, and it is this we
have really to deal with.’ According to Theophrastos,
Xenophanes was a disciple of Anaximander, and he
may quite well have seen and spoken with Thales, In
any case, he must have known scores of people who
were able to remember what happened, and he had no
conceivable interest in misrepresenting it. The pre-
diction of the eclipse is really better attested than any
other fact about Thales whatsoever, and the evidence
for it is about as strong as for anything that happened
in the early part of the sixth century B.C.

Now it is quite possible to predict eclipses without
knowing their true cause, and there is no doubt that
the Babylonians actually did so. On the basis of their
astronomical observations, they had made out a cycle
of 223 lunar months, within which eclipses of the sun
and moon recurred at equal intervals of time.” This,
it is true, would not enable them to predict eclipses of
the sun for a given spot on the earth’s surface ; for
these phenomena are not visible at all places where the
sun is above the horizon at the time. We do not
occupy a position at the centre of the earth, and what
astronomers call the geocentric parallax has to be

1 Diog. i.” 23, δοκεῖ δὲ κατά τινας πρῶτος ἀστρολογῆσαι καὶ ἡλιακὰς
ἐκλείψεις καὶ τροπὰς προειπεῖν, ὥς φησιν Εὔδημος ἐν τῇ περὶ τῶν ἀστρο-
λογουμένων ἱστορίᾳ, ὅθεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἘΞνοφάνης καὶ Ἡρόδοτος θαυμάζει.

3 The first to call attention to the Chaldaean cycle in this connexion
seems to have been the Rev. George Costard, Fellow of Wadham College.
See his Dissertation on the Use of Astronomy in History (London, 1764),
Ρ. 17. It is inaccurate to call it the Savos; that was quite another thing
(see Ginzel, AZo, i. p. 377).

Date of
Thales.

42 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

taken into account. It would only, therefore, be
possible to tell by means of the cycle that an eclipse
of the sun would be visible somewhere, and that it
might be worth while to look out for it. Now, if we _
may judge from a report by a Chaldaean astronomer
which has been preserved, this was just the position of
the Babylonians. They watched for eclipses at the
proper dates ; and, if they did not occur, they announced
the fact as a good omen.’ To explain what we are
told about Thales no more than this is required. He
simply said there would be an eclipse; and, as good
luck would have it, it was visible in Asia Minor, and on
a striking occasion.

4. The prediction of the eclipse does not, then, throw
much light upon the scientific attainments of Thales ;
but, if we can fix its date, it will give us a point from
which to start in trying to determine the time at which
he lived. Modern astronomers have calculated that
there was an eclipse of the sun, probably visible in
Asia Minor, on May 28 (O.S.), 585 B.c.,? while Pliny
gives the date of the eclipse foretold by Thales as Ol.
XLVIII. 4 (585/4 Bc)° This, it is true, does not

1 See George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875), p. 409. The inscrip-
tion which follows was found at Kouyunjik :—

“Τὸ the king my lord, thy servant Abil-Istar.

** Concerning the eclipse of the moon of which the king my lord sent to
me; in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and Nipur, observations they made,
and then in the city of Akkad, we saw part. . . . The observation was
made, and the eclipse took place.

‘And when for the eclipse of the sun we made an observation, the
observation was made and it did not take place. That which I saw with
my eyes to the king my lord I send.”

2 For the literature of this subject, see R. P. 8 Ὁ, adding Ginzel, Spezzeller
Kanon, p. 171. Seealso Milhaud, Sczence grecgue, p. 62.

3 Pliny, V.Z. 11. 53.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 43

exactly tally ; for May 585 belongs to the year 586/5
B.C. It is sufficiently near, however, to justify us in
identifying the eclipse as that of Thales, and this is
confirmed by Apollodoros, who fixed his floruzt in the
same year. The further statement that, according to
Demetrios Phalereus, Thales “received the name of
wise” in the archonship of Damasias at Athens, agrees
very well with this, and is doubtless based on the story
of the Delphic tripod ; for the archonship of Damasias
is the era of the restoration of the Pythian Games.”

5. The introduction of Egyptian geometry into Thales in
Hellas is universally ascribed to Thales, and it is ὌΡ
extremely probable that he did visit Egypt; for he
had a theory of the inundations of the Nile. In a
well-known passage,® Herodotos gives three explana-

+ For Apollodoros, see Appendix, § 20. The dates in our text of
Diogenes (i. 37; R. P. 8) cannot be reconciled with one another. That
given for the death of Thales is probably right ; for it is the year before the
fall of Sardeis in 546/5 B.C., which is one of the regular eras used by
Apollodoros. It no doubt seemed natural to make Thales die the year
before the * ruin of Ionia” which he foresaw. Seventy-eight years before
this brings us to 625/4 B.c. for the birth of Thales, and this gives us 585/4
B.C, for his fortieth year. That is Pliny’s date for the eclipse, and Pliny’s
dates come from Apollodoros through Nepos. For a full discussion of the
subject, see Jacoby, pp. 175 sqq.

2 Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9). I do not discuss the Pythian era and the date
of Damasias here, though it appears to me that the last word has not yet
been said upon the subject. Jacoby (pp. 170 sqq.) argues strongly for 582/1,
the date now generally accepted. Others favour the Pythian year 586/5
B.C., which is the very year of the eclipse, and this would help to explain
how those historians who used Apollodoros came to date it a year too
late; for Damasias was archon for two years and two months. It is
even possible that they misunderstood the words Δαμασίου rod δευτέρου,
which are intended to distinguish him from an earlier archon of the same
name, as meaning ‘‘in the second year of Damasias.” Apollodoros gave
only Athenian archons, and the reduction to Olympiads is the work of
later writers. Kirchner, adopting the year 582/1 for Damasias, brings the
archonship of Solon down to 591/0 (22. AZus. liii. pp. 242 sqq.). But the
date of Solon’s archonship can never have been doubtful. On Kirchner’s
reckoning, we come to 5386/5 B.c., if we keep the traditional date of
Solon. See also E. Meyer, Forschungen, ii. pp. 242 5644.

3 Herod. ii, 20.

44 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

tions of the fact that this alone of all rivers rises in
summer and falls in winter; but, as his custom is in
such cases, he does not name their authors. The first
of them, however, that which attributes the floods to
the Etesian winds, is ascribed to Thales in the Plactta,'
and also by many later writers. Now, those statements
are derived from a treatise on the Rise of the Nile
attributed to Aristotle and known to the Greek
commentators, but now extant only in a Latin epitome
of the thirteenth century. In this work the first of
the three theories mentioned by Herodotos is ascribed
to Thales, the second to Euthymenes of Massalia, and
the third to Anaxagoras. Where did Aristotle, or
whoever wrote the book, get these names? We think
naturally once more of Hekataios, whom Herodotos so
often reproduces without mentioning his name; and
this conjecture is much strengthened when we find that
Hekataios actually mentioned Euthymenes.? We may
conclude, then, that Thales really was in Egypt; and,
perhaps, that Hekataios, in describing the Nile, took
account, as was only natural, of his distinguished
fellow-citizen’s views,

Thalesand Ο. As to the nature and extent of the mathematical

geomerY: knowledge brought back by Thales from Egypt, it
seems desirable to point out that many writers have
seriously misunderstood the character of the tradition.’
In his commentary on the First Book of Euclid,
Proclus enumerates, on the authority of Eudemos,

1 Aet. iv. 1. 1 (Dox. p. 384).

2 Dox. pp. 226-229. ‘The Latin epitome will be found in Rose’s edition
of the Aristotelian fragments.

3 Hekataios, fr. 278 (7. 4.G. i. p. 19).

* See Cantor, Vorlesungen wiber Geschichte der Mathematik, vol. i. pp.
112 sqq.; Allman, “Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid ” (Zermathena,
ili. pp. 164-174).

7

; THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 45

certain propositions which he says were known to
Thales.’ One of the theorems with which he credits.
him is that two triangles are equal when they have one
side and the two adjacent angles equal. This he must
have known, said Eudemos, as otherwise he could not
have measured the distances of ships at sea from a
watch-tower in the way he was said to have done?
Here we see how all these statements arose. Certain
remarkable feats in the way of measurement were
traditionally ascribed to Thales, and it was assumed
that he must have known all the propositions which
these imply. But this is quite an illusory method of
inference. Both the measurement of the distance of
ships at sea, and that of the height of the pyramids,
which is also ascribed to him,’ are easy applications of

~1 Proclus, zz Eucl. pp. 65, 73 157, 103 250, 20; 299, I; 352, 143
(Friedlein). _Eudemos wrote the first histories of astronomy and
mathematics, just as Theophrastos wrote the first history of philosophy.

2 Proclus, p. 352, 14, Εὔδημος δὲ ἐν ταῖς γεωμετρικαῖς ἱστορίαις εἰς
Θαλῆν τοῦτο ἀνάγει τὸ θεώρημα (πεῖ, i. 26) τὴν γὰρ τῶν ἐν θαλάττῃ
πλοίων ἀπόστασιν δι’ οὗ τρόπου φασὶν αὐτὸν δεικνύναι τούτῳ προσχρῆσθαί
φησιν ἀναγκαῖον. For [Π6 method adopted by Thales, see Tannery, Géomeétrie
grecque, p. 90. I agree, however, with Dr. Gow (Short History of
Greek Mathematics, § 84) that it is very unlikely Thales reproduced and
measured on land the enormous triangle which he had constructed in a
perpendicular plane over the sea. Such a method would be too cumbrous
to be of use. It is much simpler to suppose that he made use of the
Egyptian seg?.

3 The oldest version of this story is given in Diog. i. 27, ὁ δὲ Ἱερώνυμος
καὶ ἐκμετρῆσαί φησιν αὐτὸν τὰς πυραμίδας, ἐκ τῆς σκιᾶς παρατηρήσαντα ὅτε

ἡμῖν. ἰσομεγέθης ἐστίν. Cf. Pliny, H. Wat. xxxvi. 82, mensuram altt-

tudinis earum deprehendere invenit Thales Milesius umbram metiendo qua
hora par esse corport solet. (Hieronymos of Rhodes was contemporary
with Eudemos.) This need imply no more than the simple reflexion that
the shadows of all objects will probably be equal to the objects at the same
hour. Plutarch (Conv. sept. sap. 147 a) gives a more elaborate method,
τὴν βακτηρίαν στήσας ἐπὶ τῷ πέρατι τῆς σκιᾶς ἣν ἡ πυραμὶς ἐποίει, γενομένων
τῇ ἐπαφῇ τῆς ἀκτῖνος δυοῖν τριγώνων, ἔδειξας ὃν ἡ σκιὰ πρὸς τὴν σκιὰν λόγον
εἶχε, τὴν πυραμίδα πρὸς τὴν βακτηρίαν ἔχουσαν. This, as Dr. Gow points.
out, is only another calculation of seg¢, and may very well have been the
method of Thales.

46 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

what Aahmes calls the seg¢. These rules of mensura-
tion may well have been brought from Egypt by
Thales, but we have no ground for supposing that he
knew any more about their vationale than did the
author of the Rhind papyrus. Perhaps, indeed, he
gave them a wider application than the Egyptians had
done. Still, mathematics, properly so called, did not
come into existence till some time after Thales. |

Thalesasa 7. Thales appears once more in the pages of

politician. “Herodotos some time before the fall of the Lydian
empire. He is said to have urged the Ionian Greeks
to unite in a federal state with its capital at Teos.’
We shall have occasion to notice more than once in
the sequel that the early schools of philosophy were
in the habit of trying to influence the course of
political events; and there are many things, for
instance the part played by. Hekataios in the Ionian
revolt, which point to the conclusion that the scientific
men of Miletos took up a very decided position in
the stirring times that followed the death of Thales.
It is this political action which has gained the founder
of the Milesian school his undisputed place among the
Seven Wise Men; and it is owing mainly to his
inclusion among those worthies that the numerous
anecdotes which were told of him in later days attached
themselves to his name.”

Uncertain 8. If Thales ever wrote anything, it soon was lost,

character of

Bee te ρὰ, and the works which were written in his name did

not, as a rule, deceive even the ancients.® Aristotle

1 Herod. i. 170 (R. P. 9 d).

* The story of Thales falling into a well (Plato, Z%¢. 174 a) is nothing
but a fable teaching the uselessness of σοφία; the anecdote about the
**corner” in oil (Ar. Pol. A, 11. 1259 a 6) is intended to inculcate the
opposite lesson. - § See R.XP. oe.

;
THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 49

professes to know something about the views of Thales ;
but he does not pretend to know how they were arrived
at, nor the arguments by which they were supported.
He does, indeed, make certain suggestions, which are
repeated by later writers as statements of fact; but he
himself simply gives them for what they are worth.’
There is another difficulty in connexion with the
tradition. Many a precise-looking statement in the
Placita has no other foundation than the habit of
ascribing any doctrine which was, roughly speaking,
characteristic of the whole Ionic “Succession” to
“Thales and his followers,’ and so producing the
appearance of a definite statement about Thales. “But,
in spite of all this, we need not doubt that Aristotle
was correctly informed with regard to the leading
points. We have seen traces of reference to Thales in
Hekataios, and nothing can be more likely than that
later writers of the school should have quoted the
views of its founder. We may venture, therefore, upon
a conjectural restoration of his cosmology, in which we
shall be guided by what we know for certain of the
subsequent development of the Milesian school; for
we should naturally expect to find its characteristic
doctrines at least foreshadowed in the teaching of its
earliest representative. But all this must be taken for
just what it is worth; speaking strictly, we do not
know anything about the teaching of Thales at all.

9. The statements of Aristotle may be reduced to Conjectural
account of the

three : cosmology of
᾿ Thales.
(1) The earth floats on the water.
ΒΡ δ |

2 Arist. 2222. A, 3. 983 Ὁ 21 (Ε. P. 10) ; de Caelo, B, 13. 294 a 28 (R. Ρ.
11). Later writers add that he gave this as an explanation of earthquakes
(so Aet. iii. 15, 1); but this is probably due to a “" Homeric allegorist ?

Water.

46 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(2) Water is the material cause’ of all things.
(3) All things are full of gods. The magnet is
alive ; for it has the power of moving iron.’

The first of these statements must be understood in
the light of the second, which is expressed in Aristotelian
terminology, but would undoubtedly mean that Thales
had said water was the fundamental or primary thing,
of which all other things were mere transient forms.
It was, we shall see, just such a primary substance
that the Milesian school as a whole was seeking, and
it is unlikely that the earliest answer to the great
question of the day should have been the comparatively
subtle one given by Anaximander. We are, perhaps,
justified in holding that the greatness of Thales con-

ow

sisted in this, that he was the first to ask, not what

was the original thing, but what zs the primary thing
now ; or, more simply still, “What is the world made
of?” The answer he gave to this question was: Water.

10. Aristotle and Theophratos, followed by Sim-
plicius and the doxographers, suggest several explana-
tions of this answer. By Aristotle these explanations
are given as conjectural ; it is only later writers that
repeat them as if they were quite certain.? The most

(Appendix, ὃ 11}, who wished to explain the epithet ἐννοσίγαιος. Cf.
Diels, Dox. p. 225.

1 Met. A, 3. 983 Ὁ 20 (R. P. 10). I have said ‘‘ material cause,”
because τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχῆς (Ὁ 19) means τῆς ἐν ὕλης εἴδει ἀρχῆς (Ὁ 7).

8 Arist. de An, A, 5. 411 a 7 (ΚΒ. P. 13); 2. 2. 405 a 19 (R. P. 13 a).
Diog. i. 24 (R. P. 206.) adds amber. This comes from Hesychios of
Miletos ; for it occurs in the scholium of Par. A on Plato, Ref. 600 a.

3 Met. A, 3. 983 Ὁ 22; Aet. i. 3, 1; Simpl. PAys. Ὁ. 36, 10 (R. P. 10, 12,
12a). The last of the explanations given by Aristotle, namely, that Thales
was influenced by early cosmogonical theories about Okeanos and Tethys,
has strangely been supposed to be more historical than the rest, whereas
it is merely a fancy of Plato’s taken literally. Plato says more than once
(Tht. 180 ἃ 2; Crat. 402 Ὁ 4) that Herakleitos and his predecessors
(οἱ ῥέοντες) derived their philosophy from Homer (77. xiv. 201), and even

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 49

probable view of them seems to be that Aristotle simply
ascribed to Thales the arguments used at a later date
by Hippon of Samos in support of a similar thesis.'
This would account for their physiological character.
' The rise of scientific medicine had made_ biological
arguments very popular in the fifth century ; but, in the
days of Thales, the prevailing interest was not physio-
logical, but rather what we should call meteorological,
and it is therefore from this point of view we must try
to understand the theory.

Now it is not very hard to see how considerations of
a meteorological kind may have led Thales to adopt
the view he did. Of all the things we know, water
#seems to take the most various shapes. It is familiar

to us in a solid, a liquid, and a vaporous form, and so

Thales may well have thought that he saw the world-
process from water and back to water again going on
before his very eyes. The phenomenon of evaporation
naturally suggests everywhere that the fire of the
heavenly bodies is kept up by the moisture which they
draw from the sea. Even at the present day, the
country people speak of the appearance of sunbeams as
“the sun drawing water.” Water comes down again in
the rain ; and lastly, so the early cosmologists thought,

earlier sources (Orph. frag. 2, Diels, Vors. 1st ed. p. 491). In quoting this
suggestion, Aristotle refers it to ‘‘ some ”—a word which often means Plato
—and he calls the originators of the theory παμπαλαίους, as Plato had
done (Met. 983 Ὁ 28; cf. 721. 181 Ὁ 3). This is a characteristic
example of the way in which Aristotle gets"history out of Plato. See
Appendix, § 2.

1 Compare Arist. de An. A, 2. 405 Ὁ 2 (R. P. 220) with the passages
referred to in the last note. The same suggestion is made in Zeller’s fifth
edition (p. 188, n. 1), which I had not seen when the above was written.
Doring, “ Thales” (Zschr. 7. Philos. 1896, pp. 179 sqq.), takes the same view.
We now know that, though Aristotle declines to consider Hippon as a
philosopher (ez. A, 3. 984 a 3; R. P. 219 a), he was discussed in the history
of medicine known as Menon’s /atrika. See Diels in Hermes, xxviii. p. 420.

4

Theology.

50 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

it turns toearth. This seems strange to us, but it may
have seemed natural enough to men who were familiar
with the river of Egypt which had formed the Delta,
and with the torrents of Asia Minor, which bring down
unusually large alluvial deposits. At the present day
the Gulf of Latmos, on which Miletos used to stand, is
completely filled up. Lastly, they thought, earth turns
once more to water—an idea derived from the obser-
vation of dew, night-mists, and subterranean springs.
For these last were not in early times supposed
to have anything at all to do with the rain. The
“waters under the earth” were regarded as an entirely
independent source of moisture.’

11. The third of the statements mentioned above
is supposed by Aristotle himself to imply that Thales
believed in a “soul of the world,” though he is careful
to mark this as no more than an inference.” The
doctrine of the world-soul is then attributed quite
positively to Thales by Aetios, who gives it in the
Stoic phraseology which he found in his immediate
source, and identifies the world-intellect with God;
Cicero found a similar account of the matter in the
Epicurean manual which he followed, but he goes a
step further. Eliminating the Stoic pantheism, he
turns the world-intellect into a Platonic demzourgos, and
says that Thales held there was a divine mind which
formed all things out of water.* All this is derived

1 The view here taken most resembles that of the ‘‘ Homeric allegorist ”
Herakleitos (R. P. 12a). That, however, is also a conjecture, probably of
Stoic, as the others are of Peripatetic, origin.

2 Arist. de An. A, 5. 411 a 7 (R. P. 13).

3 Aet. i. 7, 11=Stob. i. 56 (R. P. 14). On the sources here referred to,
see Appendix, §§ 11, 12.

4 Cicero, de Nat. D.1. 25 (R. P. 13 b). On Cicero’s source, see Dox.
pp. 125, 128. The Herculanean papyrus of Philodemos is, unfortunately,

a ie ot 6 ee ee ee

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 51

from the cautious statement of Aristotle, and can have
no greater authority than its source. We need not enter,

_ then, upon the old controversy whether. Thales was an

atheist or not. It is really irrelevant. If we may
judge from his successors, he may very possibly have
called water divine ; but, if he had any religious beliefs
at all, we may be sure they were quite unconnected
with his cosmological theory.
Nor must we make too much of the saying itself
that “all things are full of gods.” It is often supposed
to mean that Thales attributed a “plastic life” to
matter, or that he was a “hylozoist.” We have seen
already how misleading this way of speaking is apt to
be,’ and we shall do well to avoid it. It is not safe to
regard such an apophthegm as evidence for anything ;
the chances are that it belongs to Thales as one of the
Seven Wise Men, rather than as founder of the
Milesian school. Further, such sayings are, as a rule,
anonymous to begin with, and are attributed now to
one sage and now to another.? On the other hand, it
is extremely probable that Thales did say that the
magnet and amber had souls. That is no apophthegm,
but something more on the level of the statement that
the earth floats on the water. It is, in fact, just the
sort of thing we should expect Hekataios to record
about Thales. It would be wrong, however, to draw
any inferences from it as to his view of the world ; for
defective just at this point, but it is not likely that the Epicurean manual
anticipated Cicero’s mistake.
1 See Introd. § VIII.
3 Plato refers to the saying πάντα πλήρη θεῶν in Laws, 899 Ὁ 9 (R. P. 14 ὃ),
without mentioning Thales. That ascribed to Herakleitos in the de par.
An. A, 5. 645 a 17 seems to be a mere variation on it. So in Diog. ix. 7

(R. P. 46d) Herakleitos is credited with the saying πάντα ψυχῶν εἶναι κα
δαιμόνων πλήρη. :

Life.

52 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to say that the magnet and amber are alive is to imply,
if anything, that other things are not.’

II]. ANAXIMANDER

12. The next name that has come down to us is
that of Anaximander, son of Praxiades. He too was
a citizen of Miletos, and Theophrastos described him °
as an “associate” of Thales. We have seen how that

expression is to be understood (§ XIV.).

According to Apollodoros, Anaximander was sixty-
four years old in Ol. LVIII. 2 (547/6 B.c.); and this
is confirmed by Hippolytos, who says he was born in
Ol. XLII. 3 (610/9 B.c.), and by Pliny, who assigns
his discovery of the obliquity of the zodiac to the same
Olympiad.’ We seem to have here something more
than a mere combination of the ordinary type; for,
according to all the rules of Alexandrian chronology,
Anaximander should have “flourished” in 565 B.C,
that is, just half-way between Thales and Anaximenes,
and this would make him sixty, not sixty-four, in 546.
Now Apollodoros appears to have said that he had
met with the work of Anaximander; and his reason
for mentioning this must be that he found in it some
indication which enabled him to fix its date without
having recourse to conjectiire. Diels suggests that
Anaximander may have given his age at the time
of writing as sixty-four, and that the book may have

1 Baumker, Das Probley: der Materie, p. 10, n. 1.

2, R. P. 15d. That the words πολίτης καὶ ἑταῖρος, given by Simplicius,
de Caelo, p. 615, 13, are the original words of Theophrastos is shown by the
agreement of Cic. Acad. ii. 118, popularis et sodalis. The two passages
represent quite independent branches of the tradition. See Appendix,
S$ 7, 12. ;

3 Diog. ii. 2 (R. P. 15); Hipp. Rey. i. 6 (Dox. p. 560); Plin. .Z.

_ ii, 31. Pliny’s dates come from Apollodoros through Nepos.

i> ae
‘ .
yas ta
t a et,

se ΝΡ ἢ ree
a Mae ’

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 53

contained.some other statement showing it to have
been published in 547/6 B.c.1 Perhaps, however, this
hardly does justice to the fact that the year given is
just that which preceded the fall of Sardeis and the
subjugation of the Lydian empire by the Persians. It
may be a more plausible conjecture that Anaximander,
writing some years later, incidentally mentioned what
his age had been at the time of that great crisis. We
know from Xenophanes that the question, “How old
were you when the Mede appeared?” was considered
an interesting one in those days.” At all events, we
seem to be justified in believing that Anaximander was
a generation younger than Thales. When he died we
do not really know.®

Like his predecessor, Anaximander distinguished
himself by certain practical inventions. Some writers
credited him with that of the gvomon; but that can
hardly be correct. Herodotos tells us this instrument
came from Babylon, so perhaps it was Anaximander
who made it known among the Greeks. He was also
the first to construct a map, and Eratosthenes said this
was the map elaborated by Hekataios.*

1 Rhein. Mus. xxxi. p. 24.

* Xenophanes, fr. 22 (fr. 17, Karsten; R. P. 95 a). Jacoby (p. 190)
thinks that Apollodoros fixed the orwit of Anaximander forty years before
that of Pythagoras, that is, in 572/1 B.c., and that the statement as to his
age in 547/6 is a mere inference from this.

3 The statement that he ‘‘ died soon after” (Diog. ii. 2; R. P. 15) seems
to mean that Apollodoros made him die in the year of Sardeis (§46/5), one
of his regular epochs. If this is so, Apollodoros cannot have said also that
he flourished in the days of Polykrates, and Diels is probably right in
supposing that this notice refers to Pythagoras and -has been inserted in
_ the wrong place.

4 For the gnomon, see Introd. p. 31, n. 1; andcf. Diog. ἢ ii. r (R. P. 15) +
Herod. ii. 109 (R. P. 15 a). Pliny, on the other hand, ascribes the
invention of the gnomon to Anaximenes (4V.H. ii. 87). The truth seems

to be that the erection of celebrated gnomons was traditionally ascribed to
certain philosophers. That of Delos was referred to Pherekydes. For
o> a oy

ONG

_- ᾿ς 4

Theophrastos

54 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

13. Nearly all we know of Anaximander’s system

on Anaximan- ,
der's theory of 1S derived in the last resort from Theophrastos." As

the primary
substance.

ee

Ψ

re
ὩΣ

to the credibility of what we are told on his authority,
it is enough to remark that the original work, which
was in the hands of Apollodoros, must certainly have
existed in the time of Theophrastos. Moreover, he
seems once at least to have quoted Anaximander’s own
words, and he criticised his style. Here are the
remains of what he said of him in the First Book :—

Anaximander of Miletos, son of Praxiades, a fellow-citizen
and associate of Thales,? said that the material cause and first
element of things was the Infinite, he being the first to intro-
duce this name for the material cause. He says it is neither
water nor any other of the so-called * elements, but a substance
different from them which is infinite, from which arise all the
heavens and the worlds within them.—Pfys. Of. fr. 2 (Dox.
p. 476; R. P. 16).

He says that this is eternal and ageless, and that it encom-
passes all the worlds.—Hipp. Ref i. 6 (R. P. 17 a).

And into that from which things take their rise they pass
away once more, ‘“‘as is ordained; for they make reparation
and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according
to the appointed time,” as he says * in these somewhat poetical
terms.—Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 16)/

the map see Agathemeros, i. 1, ᾿Αναξίμανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος ἀκουστὴς Θαλέω
πρῶτος ἐτόλμησε τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐν πίνακι γράψαι, μεθ᾽ ὃν Ἑκαταῖος ὁ
Μιλήσιος ἀνὴρ πολυπλανὴς διηκρίβωσεν, ὥστε θαυμασθῆναι τὸ πρᾶγμα.
This is from Eratosthenes, Cf. Strabo, i. p. 7.

1 See the conspectus of extracts from Theophrastos given by Diels,
Dox. p. 133; Vors. pp. 13 sqq. In this and other cases, where the words
of the original have been preserved by Simplicius, I have given them
alone. On the various writers quoted, see Appendix, §§ 9 sqq.

? Simplicius says ‘‘ successor and disciple” (διάδοχος καὶ μαθητής) in
his Commentary on the Physics ; but see above, p. 52, ἢ. 2.

3 For the expression τὰ καλούμενα στοιχεῖα, see Diels, Elementum,
p. 25, ἢ. 4. In view of this, we must keep the MS. reading εἶναι, instead
of writing νυνέ with Usener.

4 Diels ( Vors, p.13) begins the actual quotation with the words ἐξ ὧν δὲ
ἡ γένεσις... The Greek practice of blending quotations with the text

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 55

And besides this, there was an eternal motion, in the course
of which was brought about the origin of the worlds.—Hipp.
Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 17 a).

He did not ascribe the origin of things to any alteration in
matter, but said that the oppositions in the substratum, which
was a boundless body, were separated out.—Simpl. Phys. Ρ.
150, 20 (ΚΕ. P. 18).

14. Anaximander taught, then, that there was one The primary

substance is

eternal, indestructible substance out of which everything not one of the

arises, and into which everything once more returns ;

a boundless stock from which the waste of existence is —

continually. being made good. This is only the natural
development of the thought we have ventured to
ascribe to Thales, and there can be no doubt that
Anaximander at least distinctly formulated it. Indeed,
we can still follow to some extent the reasoning which
‘led him todoso. Thales had regarded water as the
most likely of all the things we know to be that of
which all others are forms; Anaximander appears to
have asked himself how the primary substance could
be one of these particular things. His argument seems
to be preserved by Aristotle, who has the following
passage in his discussion of the Infinite :—

Further, there cannot be a single, simple body which is
infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements,
which they then derive from it, nor without this qualification.
For there are some who make this (ze. a body distinct from
the elements) the infinite, and not air or water, in order that
the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity. They
are in opposition one to another—air is cold, water moist, and
fire hot—and therefore, if any one of them were infinite, the
rest would have ceased to be by this time. Accordingly they

tells against this. It is very rare for a Greek writer to open a verbal
quotation abruptly. Further, it is safer not to ascribe the terms γένεσις
and φθορά in their technica] Platonic sense te Anaximander.

᾿

‘* elements.”

ea

e

56 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

say that what is infinite is something other than the elements,
and from it the elements arise.—Arist. Phys. T, 5. 204 Ὁ 22
(R. P. 16 b).

It is clear that in this passage Anaximander is con-
trasted with Thales and with Anaximenes. Nor is there
any reason to doubt that the account given of his
reasoning is substantially correct, though the form is
Aristotle’s own,and the mention of “elements” is an
anachronism: | Anaximander was struck, it would
seem, by the opposition and strife between the things
which go to make up the world; the warm fire was
opposed to the cold air, the dry earth to the moist sea.
These opposites were at war, and any predominance of
one over the other was an “injustice” for which they

must make reparation to one another.” We may-

suppose that his thoughts ran somewhat as follows.
~ If Thales had been right in saying that water was the
fundamental reality, it would not be easy to see how
anything else could ever have existed. One side of
the opposition, tte cold and moist, would have had its
way unchecked, ‘injustice would have prevailed, and the
warm and dry would have been driven from the field
long ago. We must, then, have something which is
not itself one of the warring opposites we know, some-
thing more primitive, out of which they arise, and into
which they once more pass away. That Anaximander
called this something by the name of φύσις, is clear

1 The conception of elements is not older than Empedokles (§ 106), and
the word στοιχεῖα, which is properly translated by e/ementa, was first used
in this sense by Plato. .For the history of the term, see Diels, E/ementum
(1899).

2 The important word ἀλλήλοις was omitted in the Aldine SERaUCHUS,
but is in all the MSS. We shall see that in Herakleitos ‘justice’? means
the observance of an equal balance between what were called later the
elements (§ 72). See also Introd. p. 32, ἢ. 1.

oe ῶνΝ μέ -,

τῇ THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 57

from the doxographers ; the current statement that the
word ἀρχή in the sense of a “ first principle” was\intro-
duced by him, is probably due to a misunderstanding
of what Theophrastos said."

15. It was natural for Aristotle to regard this

theory as an anticipation or presentiment of his own

doctrine of “indeterminate matter.”*” He knew very

well, of course, that he himself was the author of that ;
but it is in accordance with his method to represent his
own theories as the distinct formulation of truths which
earlier thinkers had only guessed at. It was to be
expected, then, that he should sometimes express
the views of Anaximander in terms of the theory of
“elements.” He knew ” that the Boundless was a
body,’ though in his own system there was no room
for anything corporeal prior to the elements ; so he had
to speak of it asa boundless body “alongside of” or
“distinct from” the elements (παρὰ τὰ στοιχεῖα). So

1 If the words quoted from Theophrastos by Simplicius, Phys. p. 24,
15 (R. P. 16), stood by themselves, no one would ever have supposed them
to mean that Anaximander called the Boundless ἀρχή. They would
naturally be rendered: ‘‘having been the first to introduce this name (2, 6.
τὸ ἄπειρον) for the ἀρχή; but the words of Hippolytos (Hef i. 6, 2),
πρῶτος τοὔνομα καλέσας τῆς ἀρχῆς, have led nearly all writers to take the
passage in the less obvious sense. We now know, however, that
Hippolytos is no independent authority, but rests altogether on Theo-
phrastos; so the natural view to take is that either his immediate source,
or he himself, or a copyist, has dropped out τοῦτο before τοὔνομα, and
corrupted κομίσας into καλέσας. It is not credible that Theophrastos made
both statements. The other passage from Simplicius compared by Usener
(p. 150, 23), πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἀρχὴν ὀνομάσας τὸ ὑποκείμενον, does not seem
to me to have anything to do with the question. It means simply that
Anaximander was the first to name the substratum as the ‘‘ material cause,”
which is a different point altogether. This is how Neuhauser takes the
passage (Anaximander, pp. 7 sqq.) ; but I cannot agree with him in holding
that the word ὑποκείμενον is ascribed to the Milesian.

? Arist. 2221. A, 2. 1069 b 18 (R. P. 16 ο).

3 This is taken for granted in Phys. Τὶ, 4. 203 a 16; 204 b 22 (R. P.
16 Ὁ), and stated in Τ', 8. 208 a 8 (ΚΕ. P. 16a). Cf. Simpl. Péys. p. 150,
20 (R. P. 18). ;

Aristotle's
account of
the theory.

58 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

far as I know, no one has doubted that, when he uses
this phrase, he is referring to Anaximander.

In a number of other places Aristotle speaks of a
thinker, whom he does not happen to name, who held
that the primary substance was something “ inter-
mediate between” the elements or between two of them!
Nearly all the Greek commentators referred this to
Anaximander also, but most modern writers refuse to.
follow them. It is, no doubt, easy to show that
Anaximander can have never meant to describe the
Boundless in this way, but that is no real objection to the
older interpretation. It is difficult to see that it is more.
of an anachronism to call the Boundless “ intermediate
between the elements” than to say that it is “ distinct
from the elements”; and indeed, if once we introduce
the elements at all, the former description is in some
ways the more adequate of the two. At any rate, if
we refuse to understand these passages as referring to
Anaximander, we shall have to say that Aristotle
paid a great deal of attention to some early thinker,
whose very name has been lost, and who* not only
agreed with some of Anaximander’s views, but also,
as is shown by one passage, used some of his most
characteristic expressions.” We may add that in one

1 Aristotle speaks four times of something intermediate between Fire
and Air (Gex. Corr, B, 1. 328 Ὁ 35 ; 16. 5. 332 a 21; Phys. A, 4.187 a 14;
Met. A, 7. 988 a 30). In five places we have something intermediate
between Water and Air (Jet. A, 7. 988 a 13; Gen. Corr. B, 5. 332 a 21;
Phys. ΤᾺ, 4. 203 a 18; 2b. 5. 205 a 27; de Caelo, T, 5. 303 Ὁ 12). Once
(Phys. A, 6. 189 b 1) we hear of something between Water and Fire. This
variation shows at once that he is not speaking historically. If any one

ever held the doctrine of τὸ μεταξύ, he must have known perfectly well
which two elements he meant.

® Arist. de Caelo, T, 5. 303 Ὁ 12, ὕδατος μὲν λεπτότερον, ἀέρος δὲ
πυκνότερον, ὃ περιέχειν φασὶ πάντας τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἄπειρον bv. That
this refers to Idaios οἵ Himera, as suggested by Zeller (p. 258), seems
very improbable. Aristotle nowhere mentions his name, and the tone

ὦ oe

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 59

or two places Aristotle certainly seems to identify the
“intermediate” with the something “ distinct from” the
elements.’

There is even one place in ἽΠΠΟΣ he appears to
speak of Anaximander’s Boundless as a “ mixture,”
though his words may perhaps admit of another inter-
pretation.” But this is of no consequence for our
interpretation of Anaximander himself. It is certain
that he cannot have said anything about “elements,”
which no one thought of before Empedokles, and no
,one could think of before Parmenides. The question
has only been mentioned at all because it has been
the subject of a lengthy controversy,? and because
it throws great light on the historical value of Aristotle’s
statements. From the point of view of his own system,
these are abundantly justified ; but we shall have to
remember in other cases that, when he seems to attribute
an idea to some earlier thinker, we are not in the least
bound to believe what he says in a historical sense.

16. Anaximander reason for conceiving the The primary
substance is

of his reference to Hippon in Mer. A, 3. 984 a 3 (R. P. 219 a) shows infinite.

that he was not likely to pay so much attention to the émiyovo of the
Milesian school.

1 Cf. Phys. Τ', 5. 204 Ὁ 22 (R. P. 16 b), where Zeller rightly refers τὸ παρὰ
τὰ στοιχεῖα to Anaximander. Now, at the end (205 a 25) the whole
passage is summarised thus: καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ οὐθεὶς τὸ ἕν καὶ ἄπειρον πῦρ
ἐποίησεν οὐδὲ γῆν τῶν φυσιολόγων, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ὕδωρ ἢ ἀέρα ἢ τὸ μέσον αὐτῶν.
In Gen. Corr. Β, 1. 328 Ὁ 35 we have first τι μεταξὺ τούτων σῶμά τε ὃν καὶ
χωριστόν, and a little further on (329 a 9) μίαν ὕλην παρὰ τὰ εἰρημένα.
In B, 5. 332 a 20 we have οὐ μὴν οὐδ᾽ ἄλλο τί γε παρὰ ταῦτα, οἷον μέσον
τι ἀέρος καὶ ὕδατος ἢ ἀέρος καὶ πυρός.

2 Met. A, 2. 1069 b18(R. P. 16c). Zeller (p. 205, ἢ. 1) assumes an

“*easy zeugma.” I should prefer to say that καὶ ᾿Εμπεδοκλέους τὸ μῖγμα
was an afterthought, and that Aristotle really meant τὸ ᾿Αναξαγόρου ἕν .. .
καὶ ᾿Αναξιμάνδρου. Phys. A, 4. 187 a 20 does not assign the ** mixture ἢ
to Anaximander.

3 For the literature of this controversy, see R. P. 15. A good deal of
light is thrown on this and similar questions by W. A. Heidel, “ Qualitative

Change in Pre-Socratic Philosophy ” (Avch. xix. p. 333).

60 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

primary substance as boundless was, no doubt, that

indicated by Aristotle, namely, “that becoming might,

not [41], 1. It is not likely, however, that these words
are his own, though the doxographers speak as if they
were, It is enough for us to know that Theophrastos,
who had seen his book, attributed the thought to him.
And certainly the way in which he regarded the world
would bring home to him with more than common
force the need of a boundless stock of matter. The
“opposites” of which our world consists are, we have
seen, at war with one another, and their strife is marked
by “unjust” encroachments on either side. The warm
commits “injustice” in summer, the cold in winter.
To redress the balance, they must be absorbed once
more in their common ground; and this would lead
in the long run to the destruction of everything but
the Boundless itself, if there were not an inexhaustible
supply of it from which opposites might continually
be separated out afresh. We must picture to ourselves,
then, an endless mass, which is not any one of the
opposites we know, stretching out without limit on
every side of the heavens which bound the world we
live in.” This mass is a body, and out of it our world

2 Phys. I, 8. 208 a 8 (R. P. 16 a). That this refers to Anaximander
is shown by Aet. i. 3, 3 (R. P. 16.a).--The same argument is given in Phys.
Γ, 4. 203 Ὁ 18, a passage where Anaximander has just been quoted by ~
name, τῷ οὕτως ἂν μόνον μὴ ὑπολείπειν γένεσιν καὶ φθοράν, εἰ ἄπειρον εἴη
ὅθεν ἀφαιρεῖται τὸ γιγνόμενον. * I cannot, however, believe that the.
arguments given at the beginning of this chapter (203 b 7; R. P. 17) are
Anaximander’s. They bear the stamp of the Eleatic dialectic, and are, in
fact, those of Melissos. .

2 [ have assumed that the word ἄπειρον means spatially infinite (though
not in any precise: mathematical sense), not gualttatively indeterminate, as
maintained by Teichmiiller and Tannery. The decisive reasons for holding
that the sense of the word is ‘‘ boundless in extent” are as follows: (1)
Theophrastos said that the primary substance of Anaximander was ἄπειρον
and contained all the worlds, and the word περιέχειν everywhere means

ν THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 61

once emerged by the “separating out” of the opposites,
which one day will all be absorbed again in the Bound-
less, and our world will cease to be.

17. The doxographers say it was the “eternal The eternal ἡ
motion ” that brought into being “all the heavens and all ἜΝ
the worlds within them.” As we have seen (ὃ VIII),
it is not likely that Anaximander himself used the
phrase “ otion.” That is rather Aristotle’s own
version of what he found stated about the “separating
out” of opposites. We are not told expressly how
Anaximander conceived this to operate, but the term
“separating out” suggests some process of shaking and —
sifting as ina sieve. Now it is just such a process that
Plato makes the Pythagorean Timaios describe, and the
most probable theory is certainly that here, as in many
other cases, he has reproduced a genuinely early view.
As we shall see, it is quite likely that the Pytha-
goreans should have followed Anaximander in this. In
any case, it is wrong to identify the “eternal motion”
with the diurnal revolution of the heavens, as has
sometimes been done. That motion cannot possibly
be eternal, for the simple reason that the heavens
themselves are perishable. Aristotle says, indeed, that
all who believe the world has come into being represent

**to encompass,” not, as has been suggested, “to contain potentially.” (2)
Aristotle says (Phys. T', 4. 203 Ὁ 23) διὰ yap τὸ ἐν τῇ νοήσει wh ὑπολείπειν
kai ὁ ἀριθμὸς δοκεῖ ἄπειρος εἶναι καὶ τὰ μαθηματικὰ μεγέθη καὶ τὰ ἔξω τοῦ
οὐρανοῦ" ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω, καὶ σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ κόσμοι.
(3) Anaximander’s theory of the ἄπειρον was adopted by Anaximenes,
and he identified it with Air, which is not qualitatively indeterminate.

᾿ ἢ Plato, Z¢m. 52 e, where the elements are separated by being shaken,
stirred, and carried in different directions : ‘‘ just as by sieves and instruments
for winnowing corn, the grain is shaken and sifted, and the dense and
heavy parts go one way, and the rare and light are carried to a different
place and settle there.” For the relation of Pythagoreanism to
Anaximander, see below,\§ 535

The innumer-
able worlds. |

62 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the earth as having been forced into the centre by the
circular motion ;; but, though this doubtless refers to
Anaximander among others, it is quite irrelevant here.
It has to do only with the formation of the world after
it has been once for all separated off and enclosed in its
own heaven, and we shall have to remember it when
we come to that part of the theory. At present, we
have only to do with the motion of the Boundless
itself; and, if we wish to picture that, it is much safer
to regard it as a sort of shaking up and down which
softs out the opposites from the infinite mass. |
18. We are told more than once that Anaximander

believed there were “innumerable worlds in the Bound-
less,”? and it is now usual to regard these with Zeller
as an infinite series succeeding one another in time.
It may be allowed at once that his disproof of the idea
that the worlds are coexistent and eternal is decisive.
To suppose that Anaximander regarded this or any
other world as eternal, is a flat contradiction of every-
thing we otherwise know, and of the Theophrastean |
tradition that he taught the world was perishable. We.
have, then, to decide between the view that, though all
the worlds are perishable, there may be an unlimited
number of them in existence at the same time, and the
view that a new world never comes into existence till

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 295 a 9. The identification of the eternal
motion with the diurnal revolution is insisted on by Teichmiiller and
Tannery, and is the real source of the very unnatural interpretation which
they give to the word ἄπειρον. It was obviously difficult to credit
Anaximander with a belief in an infinite body which revolves in a circle.
The whole theory rests upon a confusion between the finite spherical
κόσμος within the οὐρανός and the infinite περιέχον outside it.

2 [Plut.] Strom. fr. 2(R. P. 21 Ὁ). The words ἀνακυκλουμένων πάντων
αὐτῶν are most naturally to be interpreted as referring to an ἀνακύκλησις or

cycle of γένεσις and φθορά in each of a multitude of coexistent worlds. It
would be a very strange phrase to use of a succession of single worlds.
ay

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 63

the old one has passed away. Now, Zeller allows! that
there is nothing in the first of these views that is
inconsistent with what we know of Anaximander ; but
he thinks all the statements which have come down to
us point rather to the second. It seems to me that
this is by no means the case, and, as, the matter is
of fundamental importance, it will be necessary to
examine the evidence once more.

In the first place, the doxographical tradition proves
that Theophrastos discussed the views of all the early
philosophers as to whether there was one world or an
infinite number, and there can be no doubt that, when
he ascribed “innumerable worlds” to the Atomists,
he meant coexistent and not successive worlds. Now,
if he had really classed two such different views under
one head, he would at least have been careful to point
out in what respect they differed, and there is no trace of
any such distinction in our tradition. On the contrary,
Anaximander, Anaximenes, Archelaos, Xenophanes, |
Diogenes, Leukippos, Demokritos, and Epicurus are
all mentioned together as holding the doctrine of
“innumerable worlds” on all sides of this one,” and the
only distinction drawn between their views is that,
while Epicurus made the distances between these
worlds unequal, Anaximander said all the worlds were
equidistant. Zeller rejected this evidence, which he

1 Zeller, pp. 234 sqq.

2 Aet. ii. 1, 3 (Dox. p. 327). Zeller is wrong in understanding xara
πᾶσαν περιωαγωγήν here of the revolution of a cycle. It means simply ‘in
every direction we turn,” and so does the alternative reading κατὰ πᾶσαν
περίστασιν. The six περιστάσεις are πρόσω, ὀπίσω, ἄνω, κάτω, δεξιά, ἀριστερά
(Nicom. Zztrod. p. 85, 11, Hoche), and Polybios uses eee of sur-
rounding space.

8 Aet. ii. 1, 8 (Dox. p. 329), τῶν ἀπείρους ἀποφηναμένων τοὺς κόσμους
᾿Αναξίμανδρος τὸ ἴσον αὐτοὺς ἀπέχειν ἀλλήλων, ᾿Ἐπίκουρος ἄνισον εἶναι τὸ
μεταξὺ τῶν κόσμων διάστημα.

64 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

supposed to be merely that of Stobaios, on the
ground that we can have no confidence in a writer
who attributes “innumerable worlds” to Anaximenes,
Archelaos, and Xenophanes. With regard to the first
two, I hope to show that the statement is quite correct,
and that it is not even incorrect in the case of the last."
In any case, it can be proved that the passage comes
from Aetios,? and there is no reason for doubting that,
in the last resort, it is derived from Theophrastos,
though the name of Epicurus may have been added
later. This is still further confirmed by what Simplicius
says in his commentary on the Physics.’

Those who assumed innumerable worlds, e.g. Anaximander,
Leukippos, Demokritos, and, at a later date, Epicurus, held
that they came into being and passed away ad infinitum, some
always coming into being and others passing away.

It is probable that this too comes from Theophrastos
through Alexander. Simplicius does not invent such
things.

We come lastly to a very important statement
which Cicero has copied from Philodemos, the author
of the Epicurean treatise on Religion found at
Herculaneum, or perhaps from the immediate source
of that work. “ Anaximander’s opinion was,” he makes
Velleius say, “that there were gods who came into
being, rising and passing away at long intervals, and

1 For Anaximenes, see § 30; Xenophanes, ὃ 59; Archelaos, Chap. X.

2 This is shown by the fact that the list of names is given also by
Theodoret. See Appendix, § Io.

3 Simpl. Phys. p. 1121, 5 (R. P. 21 b). Zeller says (p. 234, ἢ. 4) that
Simplicius elsewhere (ade Cae/o, p. 273 Ὁ 43) makes the same statement
more doubtfully. But the words ws δοκεῖ, on which he relies, are hardly an
expression of doubt, and refer, in any case, to the derivation of the doctrine
of ‘innumerable worlds’’ from that of the ἄπειρον, not to the doctrine
itself.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 65

that these were the innumerable worlds”; and this
must clearly be taken along with the statement of
Aetios to the effect that, according to Anaximander,
the “innumerable heavens” were gods.” Now it is very
much more natural to understand the “long intervals”
which Cicero mentions as intervals of space than as in-
tervals of time ;* and, if we take the passage in this way,
we have a perfect agreement among all our authorities.

It may be added that it is very unnatural to under-
stand the statement that the Boundless “ encompasses
all the worlds” of worlds succeeding one another in
time; for on this view there is at a given time only
one world to “encompass.” Moreover, the argument
mentioned by Aristotle that, if what is outside the
heavens is infinite, body must be infinite, and there
must be innumerable worlds, can only be understood
in this sense, and is certainly intended to represent
the reasoning of the Milesians; for they were the only
cosmologists who held there was a boundless body
outside the heavens.* Lastly, we happen to know that
Petron, one of the earliest Pythagoreans, held there
were just one hundred and eighty-three worlds arranged
in a triangle,” which shows that views of this sort

1 Cicero, de Nat. D. i. 25 (R. P. 21).

2 Aet. i. 7,12 (R. P. 21a). The reading of Stob., ἀπείρους οὐρανούς, is
guaranteed by the ἀπείρους κόσμους of Cyril, and the ἀπείρους νοῦς (1.6. odvous)
of the pseudo-Galen. See Dox. p. 11.

3 It is simplest to suppose that Cicero found διαστήμασιν in his Epicurean
source, and that is a technical term for the z#/exmundia.

4 Arist. Phys. Τ', 4. 203 Ὁ 25, ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω (sc. τοῦ οὐρανοῦ),
καὶ σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ κόσμοι (sc. ἄπειροι). It is to be observed
that the next words—ri yap μᾶλλον τοῦ κενοῦ ἐνταῦθα ἢ ἐνταῦθα ;—show
clearly that this refers to the Atomists as well; but the ἄπειρον σῶμα will
not apply to them. The suggestion is rather that both those who made the
Boundless a body and those who made it a κενόν held the doctrine of ἄπειροι
κόσμοι in the same sense, .

5 See below, § 53. Cf. Diels, Zlementum, pp. 63 564.

Origin of the
heavenly
bodies.

66 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

existed long before the Atomists, and looks like an
attempt to introduce some order into Anaximander’s
universe.

19. The doxographers have not left us in the dark
as to the process by which the different parts of the
world arose from the Boundless. The following state-
ment comes ultimately from Theophrastos :—

He says that something capable of begetting hot and cold
was separated off from the eternal at the origin of this world.
From this arose a sphere of flame which grew round the air
encircling the earth, as the bark grows round a tree. When
this was torn off and enclosed in certain rings, the sun, moon,
and stars came into existence.—Ps.-Plut. Stvom. fr. 2
(R. P. 19).

We see from this that when a portion of the Bound-
less had been separated off from the rest to form a
world, it first of all differentiated itself into the two
opposites, hot and cold. The hot appears as a sphere
of flame surrounding the cold; the cold, as earth with
air surrounding it. We are not told, however, in this
extract how the cold came to be differentiated into
earth, air, and water; but there is a passage in
Aristotle’s eteorology which throws some light on
the subject. We read there :—

But those who are wiser in the wisdom of men give an
origin for the sea. At first, they say, all the terrestrial region

was moist ; and, as it was dried up by the sun, the portion of ©

it that evaporated produced the winds and the turnings of the
sun and moon, while the portion left behind was the sea. So
they think the sea is becoming smaller by being dried up,
and that at last it will all be dry.—AZeveor. B, 1. 353 Ὁ 5.

And the same absurdity arises for those who say that the
earth and the terrestrial part of the world at first were moist,

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 67

but that air arose from the heat of the sun, and that the
whole world was thus increased, and that this is the cause of
winds and the turnings of the heavens.1—Jé, 2. 355 a 21
(R. P. 20 a).

In his commentary on the passage, Alexander tells
us that this was the view of Anaximander and
Diogenes ; and what he says is amply confirmed by
Anaximander’s theory of the sea as it is given by the
doxographers (§ 20). We conclude, then, that after
the first separation of the hot and the cold, the heat of
the sphere of flame turned part of the moist, cold
interior of the world into air or vapour—it is all one
at this date—and that the expansion of this mist
broke up the sphere of flame itself into rings. I give
the theory which he adopted to explain the origin of
the heavenly bodies from these rings as it has been
preserved by Hippolytos, with some supplements from
Aetios :—

The heavenly bodies are wheels of fire separated off from
the fire which encircles the world, and enclosed in air. And
they have breathing-holes, certain pipe-like passages at which
the heavenly bodies are seen. For this reason, too, when the
breathing-holes are stopped, eclipses occur. And the moon
appears now to wax and now to wane because of the stopping
and opening of the passages. The circle of the sun is
twenty-seven times the size (of the earth, while that) of the
moon is eighteen times as large.2 The sun is highest of all,

and lowest are the wheels of the fixed stars.—Hipp. Ref i.
6 (R. P. 20).

1 Zeller’s difficulty about the meaning of rporai here (p. 223, n. 2) seems

to be an imaginary one. The moon has certainly ἃ movement in de-
clination and, therefore, τροπαί (Dreyer, Planetary Systems, p. 17, n. 1).
' 2 T assume with Diels (Dox. p. 560) that something has fallen out in
our text of Hippolytos. I have, however, with Tannery, Sczence helléne,
p- 91, supplied “‘ eighteen times” rather than ‘‘ nineteen times.” Zeller
(p. 224, ἢ. 2) prefers the text of our MS. of Hippolytos to the testimony
of Aetios.

68 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Anaximander said the stars were hoop-like compressions of
air, full of fire, breathing out flames at a certain point from
orifices. The sun was highest of all, after it came the moon,
and below these the fixed stars and the planets.—Aetios, Ii.
a7 25, 6 Ἐς P, 19 a).

Anaximander said the sun was a ring twenty-eight times
the size of the earth, like a cart-wheel with the felloe hollow
and full of fire, showing the fire at a certain point, as if
through the nozzle of a pair of bellows.—Aet. ii. 20, 1
(R. P. 19 a).

Anaximander said the sun was equal to the earth, but the
ring from which it breathes out and by which it is carried round ©
was twenty-seven times as large as the earth.—Aet. ii. 21, 1
(Dox. p. 351).

Anaximander said the moon was a ring eighteen times the
size of the earth. . . .—Aet. li. 25, 1 (Dox. p. 355).

Anaximander held that thunder and lightning were caused
by the blast. When it is shut up in a thick cloud and bursts
forth with violence, then the breakage of the cloud makes the
noise, and the rift gives the appearance of a flash by contrast
with the darkness of the cloud.—Aet. ili. 3, 1 (Dox. p. 367).

Anaximander held that wind was a current of air (2.6.
vapour) which arose when its finest and moistest particles were
set in motion or dissolved by the sun.—Aet. iii. 6, 1 (Dox.
P..374)-

Rain was produced by the moisture drawn up from the
earth by the sun.—Hipp. fef. i. 6, 7 (Dox. p. 560).

We saw above that the sphere of: flame was broken
up into rings by the expansion of the air or vapour
that its own heat had drawn up from the moist, cold
interior. We must remember that Anaximander knew
nothing of the ring of Saturn.. There are three of
these rings, that of the sun, that of the moon, and,

1 Aetios goes on to say that the moon also is like a hollow cart-wheel
full of fire with an ἐκπνοή. The difference in the figures of Hippolytos and
Aetios is due to the fact that one refers to the internal and the other to the
external circumferences of the rings. Cf. Tannery, Scdence helldne, p. 91 3.
and Diels, ‘‘ Ueber Anaximanders Kosmos” (Arch. x. pp. 231 sqq.).

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 69

lastly, nearest to the earth, the circle of the stars.
The circle of the sun was twenty-seven times, and that
of the moon eighteen times as large as the earth, from
which we may perhaps infer that the circle of the stars
was nine times as large. The numbers nine, eighteen,
twenty-seven, play a considerable part in primitive
cosmogonies.. We do not see the rings of fire as
complete circles; for the mist that formed them
encloses the fire, and becomes an outer ring of opaque
vapour. These outer rings, however, have openings at
one point of their circumference, through which the
fire escapes, and these are the heavenly bodies we
actually see.”

It will be observed that we only hear of three
circles, and that the circle of the sun is the highest.
The circle of the stars presents some difficulty. It is,
in all probability, the Milky Way, the appearance of
which may well have suggested the whole theory.’ It
seems that Anaximander must have thought it had
more “breathing-holes”” than one, though the tradition
is silent on this point. There is not the slightest
reason for supposing that he regarded it as a sphere.
He could not have failed to see that a sphere so
placed would make the sun and moon permanently
invisible. What, then, are we to say of the fixed

1 As Diels points out (Arch. x. p. 229) the explanation given by
Gomperz, p. 53, cannot be right. It implies the fifth century theory of
μύδροι. Anaximander knew nothing of the “ great mass” of the sun.

3 The true meaning of this doctrine was first explained by Diels (Dox.
pp: 25 sqq.). The flames rush forth per magni circum spiracula mundi,
as Lucretius has it (vi. 493). The πρηστῆρος αὐλός, to which these are
compared, is simply the nozzle of a pair of bellows, a sense which the
word πρηστήρ has in Apollonios Rhodios (iv. 776), and has nothing to do
with the meteorological phenomenon of the same name, for which see Chap.
III. § 71. It is not now necessary to refute the earlier interpretations.

® It cannot be the Zodiac ; for the planets were not separately studied
yet.

70 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

stars that do not lie in the Milky Way? There seems
to be no way of accounting for them unless we assume
that they are the “innumerable worlds” which we
have just discussed. As the fire and air which
surrounded the world have been broken up into rings,
we must be able to see right out into the Boundless,
and the fixed stars must be just the worlds, each
surrounded by its fiery envelope. It does not seem
possible to explain all we are told in any other way ;
and, if this is right, the statement of some authors,
that Anaximander regarded the stars of heaven as gods,
may be more than the mere mistake which it is now
generally taken to be.’

The explanation given of thunder and lightning
was very similar. They too were caused by fire
breaking through compressed air, that is to say, through
the storm-clouds. It seems probable that this is really
the origin of the theory, and that Anaximander
explained the heavenly bodies on the analogy of
lightning, not vice versa. That would be in perfect
agreement with the meteorological interest of the time.

Earthand 20. We turn now to what we are told of the origin
aa of earth and sea from the moist, cold matter which
was “separated off” in the beginning, and which filled
the inside of the sphere of flame :—

The sea is what is left of the original moisture. The fire
has dried up most of it and turned the rest salt by scorching
it.—Aet. iii, 16, 1 (R. P. 20 a).

He says that the earth is cylindrical in form, and that its

1 The Placita and Eusebios both have τοὺς ἀστέρας οὐρανίους instead of
τοὺς ἀπείρους οὐρανούς (see above, p. 65, n. 2), and it seems just possible that
this is not a mere corruption of the text. The common source may have
had both statements. I do not; however, rest the interpretation given
above on this very insecure basis. Quite apart from it, it seems to be the
only way out of the difficulty.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 71

depth is as a third part of its -breadth.—Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 2
(R. P. 2.).

The earth swings free, held in its place by nothing. It
stays where it is because of its equal distance from everything.
Its shape is convex and round, and like a stone pillar. We
are on one of the surfaces, and the other is on the opposite
side..—Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 20).

Adopting for a moment the later theory of
“elements,” we see that Anaximander put fire on one
side as “the hot,” and all the rest on the other as “ the
cold,” which is also moist. This may explain how
Aristotle came to speak of the Boundless as inter-
mediate between fire and water. And we have seen
also that the moist element was partly turned into “air”
or vapour by the fire, which explains how he could say
the Boundless was something between fire and air, or
between air and water.’

The moist, cold interior of the world is not, it will
be noticed, pure water. It is always called “the moist”
or “the moist state.” That is because it has to be still
further differentiated under the influence of heat into _
earth, water, and vapour. The gradual drying up of
the water by the fire is a good example of what Anaxi-
mander meant by “injustice.” And we see how this
injustice brings about the destruction of the world.

1 The MSS. of Hippolytos have ὑγρὸν στρογγύλον. Roeper read γυρὸν
[στρογγύλον], supposing the second word to be a gloss on the first ; but
Diels has shown (Dox. p. 218) that both are wanted. The first means
**convex,” and applies to the suzface of the earth; while the second
means ‘‘ round,” and refers to its circuit. As to κίονι λίθῳ, it is not easy
to say anything positive. It might, possibly, be a mere corruption of
κυλίνδρῳ (cf. Plut. Strom. fr. 2; R. P. 20a); but, if so, it is a very old
one. Aetios (iii. 10, 2), who is quite independent of Hippolytos, has λίϑῳ
κίονι; Roeper suggested κιονέῃ λίθῳ ; Teichmiiller, κίονος λίθῳ; while
Diels doubtfully puts forward λιθῷ κίονι, which he suggests might be a

Theophrastean modernisation of an original λιθέῃ κίονι (Dox. p. 219).
- ® See above, p. 58, n. 1.

Animals.

72 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The fire will in time dry up and burn up the whole of
the cold, moist element. But then it will not be fire
any longer; it will simply be the “mixture,” if we
choose to call it so, of the hot and cold—that is, it will
be the same as the Boundless which surrounds it, and
will pass away into it.

The view which Anaximander takes of the earth is
a great advance upon anything we can reasonably
attribute to Thales, and Aristotle has preserved the
arguments by which he supported it. It is equally
distant from the extremes in every direction, and there
is no reason for it to move up or down or sideways.’
Still, he does not attain to the idea that it is spherical.
He believes that we live on a convex disc, and from
this the cylindrical form follows as a matter of course.
The really remarkable thing is that he should have
seen, however dimly, that there is no absolute up and
down in the world.

21. We have seen enough to show us that the
speculations of Anaximander about the world were of
an extremely daring character; we come now to the
crowning audacity of all, his theory of the origin of
living creatures. The Theophrastean account of this
has been well preserved by the doxographers :—

Living creatures arose from the moist element as it was
evaporated by the sun. Man was like another animal, namely,

. a fish, in the beginning.—Hipp. ef. i. 6 (R..P. 22 a).

The first animals were produced in the moisture, each en-
closed in a prickly bark. As they advanced in age, they came

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 295 Ὁ 10, εἰσὶ δέ τινες of διὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητά
φασιν αὐτὴν (τὴν γῆν) μένειν, ὥσπερ τῶν ἀρχαίων ᾿Αναξίμανδρος" μᾶλλον
μὲν γὰρ οὐθὲν ἄνω ἢ κάτω ἢ εἰς τὰ πλάγια φέρεσθαι προσήκειν τὸ ἐπὶ τοῦ
μέσου ἱδρυμένον καὶ ὁμοίως πρὸς τὰ ἔσχατα ἔχον. That Aristotle is really
reproducing Anaximander seems to be shown by the use of ὁμοιότης in the
old sense of ‘‘ equality.”

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 73

out upon the drier part. When the bark broke off! they
survived for a short time.—Aet. v. 19, 1 (R. P. 22).

Further, he says that originally man was born from animals
of another species. His reason is that while other animals
quickly find food by themselves, man alone requires a lengthy
period of suckling. Hence, had he been originally as he is
_now, he would never have survived.—Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 2
(R. P. 2d.).

He declares that at first human beings arose in the inside
of fishes, and after having been reared like sharks,? and
become capable of protecting themselves, they were finally
cast ashore and took to land.—Plut. Symp. Quaest. 730 f
(R. P. 20.).

The importance of these statements has sometimes
been overrated and still more often underestimated.
Anaximander has been called a precursor of Darwin by
some, while others have treated the whole thing as a
mythological survival. It is therefore important to
notice that this is one of the rare cases where we have
not merely a placitum, but an indication, meagre
though it be, of the observations on which it was based,
and the line of argument by which it was supported.
It is clear from this that Anaximander had an idea of
what is meant by adaptation to environment and
survival of the fittest, and that he saw the higher
mammals could not répresent the original type of
animal. For this he looked to the sea, and he naturally
fixed upon those fishes which present the closest
analogy to the zammalia. ‘The statements of Aristotle

1 This is to be understood in the light of what we are told about γαλεοί
below. Cf. Arist. Hist. An. Z, 10. 565 a 25, τοῖς μὲν οὖν σκυλίοις, οὖς
καλοῦσί τινες veBplas γαλεούς, ὅταν περιρραγῇ Kal ἐκπέσῃ τὸ ὄστρακον,
γίνονται οἱ νεοττοί.

2 Reading ὥσπερ οἱ γαλεοί for ὥσπερ οἱ παλαιοί with Doehner, who
compares Plut. de sol/. anim. 982 a, where the φιλόστοργον of the shark is
described. See p. 74, ἢ. 1.

’ Theology.

“74 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

about the galeus levis were shown long ago by Johannes
Miiller to be more accurate than those of later
naturalists, and we now know that these observations
were already made by Anaximander. The manner in
which the shark nourishes its young furnished him with
the very thing he required to explain the survival of
the earliest animals.’

22. In the course of our discussion of the “in-
numerable worlds” we saw that Anaximander regarded
these as gods, It is true, of course, as Zeller says,” that
to the Greeks the word θεός meant primarily an object
of worship, and he rightly adds that no one would think
of worshipping innumerable worlds. This, however, is
no real objection to our interpretation, though it serves
to bring out an interesting point in the development
of Greek theological ideas. The philosophers, in fact,
departed altogether from the received usage of the
word θεός. Empedokles called the Sphere and the ~
Elements gods, though it is not to be supposed that he
regarded them as objects of worship, and in the same

1 On Aristotle and the ga/eus levis, see Johannes Miiller, ‘‘ Ueber den
glatten Haides Aristoteles” (A. Preuss. Akad., 1842), to which my attention
has been directed by my colleague, Prof. D’Arcy Thomson. The precise
point of the words τρεφόμενοι ὥσπερ of γαλεοί appears from Arist. Hist. An.
Z, το. 565 b I, of δὲ καλούμενοι λεῖοι τῶν γαλεῶν τὰ μὲν Ga ἴσχουσι μεταξὺ
τῶν ὑστερῶν ὁμοίως τοῖς σκυλίοις, περιστάντα δὲ ταῦτα εἰς ἑκατέραν τὴν δικρόαν
τῆς ὑστέρας καταβαίνει, καὶ τὰ ζῷα γίνεται τὸν ὀμφαλὸν ἔχοντα πρὸς τῇ
ὑστέρᾳ, ὥστε ἀναλισκομένων τῶν φῶν ὁμοίως δοκεῖν ἔχειν τὸ ἔμβρυον τοῖς
τετράποσιν. It is not necessary to suppose that Anaximander referred to
the further phenomenon described by Aristotle, who more than once says
that all the γαλεοί except the ἀκανθίας ‘‘send out their young and take
them back again” (ἐξαφιᾶσι καὶ δέχονται els ἑαυτοὺς τοὺς νεοττούς, 7b. 565 Ὁ
23), for which compare also Ael. 1, 17; Plut. de soll. anim. 982 a. The
placenta and umbilical cord described by Johannes Miiller will account
sufficiently for all he says. At the same time, I understand that deep-sea
fishermen at the present day confirm this remarkable statement also, and
two credible witnesses have informed me that they believe they have seen
the thing happen with their own eyes.

2 Zeller, p. 230.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 75

way we shall find that Diogenes of Apollonia spoke of
Air as a god.’ As we may learn from the Clouds of
Aristophanes, it was just this way of speaking that got
philosophers the name of being ἄθεοι. It is of great
importance to bear this point in mind; for, when we
come to Xenophanes, we shall see that the god or gods |
he spoke of meant just the world or worlds. It seems ||
also that. Anaximander called the Boundless itself
divine,’ which is quite in accordance with the language
of Empedokles and Diogenes referred to above.

III. ANAXIMENES

23. Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, was, Life.
according to Theophratos, an “associate” of Anaxi-
mander.* Apollodoros said, it appears, that he
“flourished” about the time of the fall of Sardeis
(5465 B.C), and died in Ol. LXIII. (528/524 8.0.
In other words, he was born when Thales “ flourished,”
and “flourished” when Thales died, and this means
that Apollodoros had no definite information about his
date at all. He most probably made him die in the
sixty-third Olympiad because that gives just a hundred
years, or three generations, for the Milesian school from
the birth of Thales.° We cannot, therefore, say any-

1 For Empedokles, see Chap. V. § 119 and for Diogenes, Chap. X,
§ 188, fr. 5. The cosmologists followed the theogonists and cosmogonists
in this. No one worshipped Okeanos and Tethys, or even Ouranos.

3. Arist. Phys. T, 4. 203 Ὁ 13 (R. P. 17).

8 Theophr. Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).

* This follows from a comparison of Diog. ii. 3.with Hipp. Ref i. 7
(R. P. 23). In the latter passage we must, however, read τρίτον for πρῶτον
with Diels. The suggestion in R. P. 23 e that Apollodoros mentioned the
Olympiad without giving the number of the year is inadequate; for
Apollodoros did not reckon by Olympiads, but Athenian archons.

® Jacoby (p. 194) brings the date of his death into connexion with the
Jtoruit of Pythagoras, which seems to me less probable. Lortzing (/ahreséer.,
1898, p. 202) objects to my view on the ground that the period of a hundred

His book.

Theory of the
primary sub-
stance.

76 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

thing positive as to his date, except that he must have
been younger than Anaximander, and must have
flourished before 494 Β.0., when the school was, of
course, broken up by the destruction of Miletos.

24. Anaximenes wrote a book which certainly sur-
vived until the age of literary criticism ; for we are told
that he used a simple and unpretentious Ionic,’ very
different, we may suppose, from the poetical prose of
Anaximander.” We may probably trust this criticism,
which comes ultimately from Theophrastos; and it
furnishes a good illustration of the truth that the
character of a man’s thoughts is sure to find expression
in his style. We have seen that the speculations of
Anaximander were distinguished for their hardihood
and breadth ; those of Anaximenes are marked by just
the opposite quality. He appears to have thought out
his system carefully, but he rejects the more audacious
theories of his predecessor. The result is that, while
his view of the world is on the whole much less like
the truth than Anaximander’s, it is more fruitful in
ideas that were destined to hold their ground.

BP 25. Anaximenes is one of the philosophers on whom

_Theophrastos wrote a special monograph ;* and this

gives us an additional guarantee for the trustworthiness
of the tradition derived from his great work. The
following * are the passages which seem to contain the
fullest and most accurate account of what he had to
say on the central feature of the system :-—

years plays no part in Apollodoros’s calculations. It will be seen, however,
from Jacoby, pp. 39 sqq., that there is some reason for believing he made
use of the generation of 334 years.

1 Diog. ii. 3 (R. P. 23).

2 Cf. the statement of Theophrastos above, § 13.

3% On these monographs see Dox. p. 103.

4 See the conspectus of extracts from Theophrastos given in Dox. p. 135.

wi
THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 77

, a

Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, who had been
an associate of Anaximander, said, like him, that the under-
lying substance was one and infinite. He did not, however,
say it was indeterminate, like Anaximander, but determinate ;
for he said it was Air.—P/ys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).

From it, he said, the things that are, and have been, and
shall be, the gods and things divine, took their rise, while
other things come from its offspring. — Hipp. Ref i. 7
(R. P. 28).

“Just as,” he said, “our soul, being air, holds us together,
so do breath and air encompass the whole world.”—Aet. i. 3,
4 (R. P. 24). ᾿

And the form of the air is as follows. Where it is most
even, it is invisible to our sight ; but cold and heat, moisture
and motion, make it visible. It is always in motion; for, if
it were not, it would not change so much as it does.—Hipp.
Ref. i. 7 (R. P. 28).

It differs in different substances in virtue of its rarefaction
and condensation.—Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).

When it is dilated so as to be rarer, it becomes fire ; while
winds, on the other hand, are condensed Air. Cloud is formed
from Air by felting; and this, still further condensed,
becomes water. Water, condensed still more, turns to earth ;
and when condensed as much as it can be, to stones.—Hipp.
Ref. i. 7 (R. P. 28).?

26. At the first glance, this undoubtedly looks like Rarefaction

. : . and condensa-
a falling off from the more refined doctrine of Anaxi- ER σι, κι

mander to a cruder view ; but a moment’s reflexion will
show that this is not altogether the case. On the
contrary, the introduction of rarefaction and condensa-
tion into the theory is a notable advance.’ In fact, it

1 ἐς Felting” (πίλησις) is the regular term for this process with all the
early cosmologists, from whom Plato has taken it (7%. 58 Ὁ 4; 76 3).

2 A more condensed form of the same doxographical tradition is given
by Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 3 (R. P. 25).

8 Simplicius, Phys. p. 149, 32 (R. P. 26 b), says, according to the MSS.,
that Theophrastos spoke of rarefaction and condensation in the case of
Anaximenes a/one. We must either suppose with Zeller (p. 193, n. 2) that

~

Air.

78 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

makes the Milesian cosmology thoroughly consistent
for the first time ; since it is clear that a theory which
explains everything by the transformations of a single
substance is bound to regard all differences as purely
quantitative. The infinite substance of Anaximander,
from which the opposites “in it” are “separated out,”
cannot, strictly speaking, be thought of as homogeneous,

and the only way to save the unity of the primary

substance is to say that all diversities are due to the-

presence of more or less of it ina given space. And
when once this important step has been taken, it is no
longer necessary to make the primary substance some-
thing “distinct from the elements,” to use Aristotle’s
inaccurate but convenient phrase; it may just as well
be one of them.

27. The air that Anaximenes speaks of includes a
good deal that we should not call by that name, In
its normal condition, when most evenly distributed, it is
invisible, and it then corresponds to our “air”; it is
identical with the breath we inhale and the wind that
blows. That is why he called it πνεῦμα. On the
other hand, the old idea, familiar to us in Homer, that
mist or vapour is condensed air, is still accepted with-
out question. In other words, we may say that Anaxi-
menes supposed it to be a good deal easier to get liquid
air than it has since proved to be. It was Empedokles,
we shall see, who first discovered that what we call air
was a distinct corporeal substance, and was not identical
either with vapour or with empty space. In the earlier

6 ase”

cosmologists “air” is always a form of vapour, and
this means “‘alone among the oldest Ionians” or read πρώτου for μόνου
with Usener. The regular terms are πύκνωσις and ἀραίωσις or μάνωσις.

Plutarch, de prim. frig. 947 f (R. P. 27), says that Anaximenes used the
term τὸ χαλαρόν for the rarefied air.

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 79

even darkness is a form of it. It was Empedokles who
cleared up this point too by showing that darkness is a
shadow." _/ .

It was natural for Anaximenes to fix upon Air in
this sense as the primary substance ; for, in the system
of Anaximander, it occupied an intermediate place
between the two fundamental opposites, the sphere of
flame and the cold, moist mass within it (§ 19). We
know from Plutarch that he fancied air became warmer
when rarefied, and colder when condensed. Of this
he satisfied himself by a curious experimental proof.
When we breathe with our mouths open, the air is
warm; when we breathe with our lips closed, it
is cold?

28. This argument from human breathing brings us The world
to an important point in the theory of Anaximenes, presse 5
which is attested by the single fragment that has come
down to us.2 “Just as our soul, being air, holds us
together, so do breath and air encompass the whole
world.” The primary substance bears the same relation
to the life of the world as to that of man. Now this,
we shall see, was the Pythagorean view ; ἡ
an early instance of the argument from the microcosm
to the macrocosm, and so marks the first beginnings of

and it is also

an interest in physiological matters. a

1 For the meaning of ἀήρ in Homer, see Schmidt, Synonomik, § 35 ; and
for its survival in Ionic prose, Hippokrates, Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τόπων, 15,
ἀήρ τε πολὺς κατέχει τὴν χώρην ἀπὸ τῶν ὑδάτων. Plato is still conscious of
the old meaning of the word ; for he makes Timaios say ἀέρος (γένη) τὸ μὲν
εὐαγέστατον ἐπίκλην αἰθὴρ καλούμενος, ὁ δὲ θολερώτατος ὁμίχλη Kal σκότος
(Zim. 58d). The view given in the text has been criticised by Tannery,
“* Une nouvelle hypothése sur Anaximandre” (4vch. viii. pp. 443 544.), and
I have slightly altered my expression of it to meet these criticisms. The
point-is of fundamental importance, as we shall see, for the interpretation
of Pythagoreanism. 2 Plut. de prim. frig. 947 f (R. P. 27).

3 Aet. i, 3, 4 (R. P. 24). 4 See Chap. II. § 53.

80 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The partsof 29. We turn now to the doxographical tradition
“oCaleg concerning the formation of the world and its parts :—

He says that, as the air was felted, the earth first came
into being. It is very broad and is accordingly supported by
the air.—Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 3 (R. P. 25).

In the same way the sun and the moon and the other
heavenly bodies, which are of a fiery nature, are supported by
the air because of their breadth. ‘The heavenly bodies were
produced from the earth by moisture rising from it. When
this is rarefied, fire comes into being, and the stars are com-
posed of the fire thus raised aloft. There were also bodies of
earthy substance in the region of the stars, revolving along
with them. And he says that the heavenly bodies do not move
under the earth, as others suppose, but round it, as a cap turns
round ourhead. Thesun is hidden from sight, not because it
goes under the earth, but because it is concealed by the higher
parts of the earth, and because its distance from us becomes
greater. The stars give no heat because of the greatness of
their distance.—Hipp. Fe. i. 7, 4-6 (R. P. 28).

Winds are produced when air is condensed and rushes
along under propulsion; but when it is concentrated and
thickened still more, clouds are generated ; and, lastly, it turns
to water.1\—Hipp. Ref i. 7, 7 (Dox. p 561).

The stars are fixed like nails in the crystalline vault of the
heavens.—Aet. ii. 14, 3 (Dox. p. 344).

They do not go under the earth, but turn round it.—JZJ,
16, 6 (Dox. p. 346).

The sun is fiery.— 72. 20, 2 (Dox. p. 348).

It is broad like a leaf.i—/d. 22, 1 (Dox. p. 352).

The heavenly bodies are diverted from their courses by the
resistance of compressed air.—/d. 23, 1 (Dox. p. 352).

The moon is of fire—Jd. 25, 2 (Dox. p. 356).

Anaximenes explained lightning like Anaximander, adding
as an illustration what happens in the case of ‘the sea, which
flashes when divided by the oars.—JZJ. iii. 3, 2 (Dox. p. 368).

1 The text is very corrupt here. I retain ἐκπεπυκνωμένος, because we
are told above that winds are condensed air, and I adopt Zeller’s ἀραιῷ
εἰσφέρηται (p. 246, n. 1).

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 81

Hail is produced when water freezes in falling; snow,
when there is some air imprisoned in the water.—Aet. iii. 4, 1
(Dox. p. 37°).

The rainbow is produced when the Beditis of the sun fall on
thick condensed air. Hence the anterior part of it seems red,
being burnt by the sun’s rays, while the other part is dark,
owing to the predominance of moisture. And he says that a
rainbow is produced at night by the moon, but not often,
because there is not constantly a full moon, and because the
moon’s light is weaker than that of the sun.—Scho/, Arat.1
(Dox. p. 231).

The earth was like a table in shape.—Aet. iii. 10, 3 (Dox.
Ρ. 377).

The cause of earthquakes was the dryness and moisture of
the earth, occasioned by droughts and heavy rains respectively.

—lb, 15, 3 (Dox. p. 379).
Ἁ

We have seen that Anaximenes was quite justified in
going back to Thales in regard to his general theory of
the primary substance; but it cannot be denied that
the effect of this upon the details of his cosmology was
unfortunate. The earth is once more imagined as a
table-like disc floating upon the air. The sun, moon,
and planets are also fiery discs which float on the air
“like leaves.’ It follows that the heavenly bodies
cannot be thought of as going under the earth at night,
but only as going round it laterally like a cap ora
millstone.? This curious view is also mentioned in
Aristotle’s Meteorology, where the elevation of the
northern parts of the earth, which makes it possible for

1 The source of this is Poseidonios, who used Theophrastos. Dox.
p. 231.

3 Theodoret (iv. 16) speaks of those who believe in a revolution like that
of a millstone, as contrasted with one like that of a wheel. Diels (Dox. p.
46) refers these similes to Anaximenes and Anaximander respectively.
They come, of course, from Aetios (Appendix, § 10), though they are
given neither by Stobaios nor in the Placi¢a.

3 B, 1. 3544 28 (R. P. 28 c).

“πα αι

Innumerable
worlds.

82 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the heavenly bodies to be hidden from sight, is referred
to. In fact, whereas Anaximander had regarded the
orbits of the sun, moon, and stars as oblique with
reference to the earth, Anaximenes regarded the earth
itself as inclined. The only real advance is the
distinction of the planets, which float freely in the
air, from the fixed stars, which are fastened to the

)

“crystalline ” vault of the sky.’ |
The earthy bodies, which circulate among the
planets, are doubtless intended to account for eclipses
and the phases of the moon.”
30. As might be expected, there is the same

difficulty about the “innumerable worlds” ascribed to

᾿ς Anaximenes as about those of Anaximander, and most

of the arguments given above (§ 18) apply here also.
The evidence, however, is far less satisfactory. Cicero
says that Anaximenes regarded air as a god, and adds
that it came into being. That there issome confusion
here is obvious. Air, as the primary substance, is
certainly eternal, and it is qui#e-likely that Anaximenes
called it “divine,” as Anaximander did the Boundless :
but it is certain that he also spoke of gods who came
into being and passed away. These arose, he said, from
the air. This is expressly stated by Hippolytos,* and
also by St. Augustine.” These gods are probably to

1 We do not know how Anaximenes imagined the “crystalline ” sky.
It is probable that he used the word πάγος as Empedokles did. Cf. Chap.
V. § 112.

2 See Tannery, Science helléne, p. 153. For the precisely similar bodies
assumed by Anaxagoras, see below, Chap. VI. §135. See further Chap.
VII. § 151.

3 Cic. de nat. D. i. 26 (ΚΕ. P. 28 b). On what follows see Krische,
Forschungen, pp. 52 566.

4 Hipp. Ref. i. 7, 1 (R. P. 28).

5 Aug. de civ. D, viii. 2: ‘‘ Anaximenes omnes rerum causas infinito
aéri dedit : nec deos negavit aut tacuit ; non tamen ab ipsis aérem factum,
sed ipsos ex aére ortos credidit ” (R. P. 28 b).

THE MILESIAN SCHOOL $3

be explained like Anaximander’s. Simplicius, indeed,
takes another view;* but he may have been misled
by a Stoic authority.
31. It is not quite easy for us to realise that, Influence of

in the eyes of his contemporaries, and for long after, a
Anaximenes was_a much..more important figure than
Anaximander. And yet the fact is certain. We shall
see that Pythagoras, though he followed Anaximander
in his account of the heavenly bodies, was far more
- indebted to Anaximenes for his general theory. of
reality (§ 53). We shall see further that when, at a
later date, science revived once more in Ionia, it
was “the philosophy of Anaximenes” to which it
attached itself (§ 122). Anaxagoras adopted many of
his most characteristic views (§ 135), and some of them
even found their way into the cosmology of the
Atomists.” Diogenes of Apollonia went back to the
central doctrine of Anaximenes, and once more made
Air the primary substance, though he also tried to
combine it with the theories of Anaxagoras, (δ 188).
We shall come to all this later on; but it seemed
desirable’ to point out at once that Anaximenes marks
the culminating point of the line of thought which

? Simpl. Phys. p. 1121, 12(R. P. 28 a). The passage from the Placiéa is
of higher authority than this from Simplicius. Note, further, that it is only
to Anaximenes, Herakleitos, and Diogenes that successive worlds are
ascribed even here. With regard to Anaximander, Simplicius is quite
clear. For the Stoic view of Herakleitos, see Chap. III. § 78; and for
Diogenes, Chap. X. § 188. That Simplicius is following a Stoic authority
is suggested by the words καὶ ὕστερον οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς. CF-.diso Simpl.
de Caelo, p. 202, 13.

2 In particular, the authority of Anaximenes was so great that both
Leukippos and Demokritos adhered to his theory of a disc-likeearth. Cf.
Aet. iii, 10, 3-5 (Περὶ σχήματος γῆς), ᾿Αγαξιμένης τραπεζοειδῆ (τὴν γῆν).
Λεύκιππος τυμπανοειδῆ.ς. Δημόκριτος δισκβειδῇ μὲν τῷ πλάτει, κοίλην δὲ
τῷ μέσῳ. This, in spite of the fact thatthe spherical form of the earth
was already a commonplace in circles affe by Pythagoreanism.

84. EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

started with Thales, and to show how the “ philosophy
of Anaximenes” came to mean the Milesian doctrine

asawhole, This it canonly have done because it was |

really the work of a school, of which Anaximenes was
the last distinguished representative, and because his
contribution to it was one that completed the sy$t@m
he had inherited from his predecessors. That the
theory of rarefaction and condensation was really
such a completion of the Milesian system, we have
seen already (§ 26), and it need only be added that a
clear realisation of this fact will be the best clue at
once to the understanding of the Milesian cosmology
itself and to that of the systems which followed it. In
the main, it is from Anaximenes that they all start.

7

THANE TINS

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

32. So far we have not met with any trace of direct Migrations to

antagonism between science and popular beliefs, though
the views of the Milesian cosmologists were really as
inconsistent with the religions of the people as with
the mythology of the anthropomorphic: poets.’ Two
_ things hastened the conflict—the shifting of the’scene
to the West, and the religious revival which swept over
Hellas in the sixth century B.C.

The chief figures in the philosophical history of the
period were Pythagoras of Samos and Xenophanes of
Kolophon. Both were Ionians by birth, and yet both
spent the greater part of their lives in the West. We
see from Herodotos how the Persian advance in Asia
Minor occasioned a series of migrations to Sicily and
Southern Italy 3? and this, of course, made a great
difference to philosophy as well as to religion. The
new views had probably grown up so naturally and
gradually in Ionia that the shock of conflict and
reaction was avoided; but that could no longer be so,
when they were transplanted to a region where men
were wholly unprepared to receive them.

1 For the theological views of Anaximander and Anaximenes, see
§§ 22 and 30.
* Cf, Herod. i. 170 (advice of Bias) ; vi. 22 sqq. (Kale Akte).
é 85

the West.

———

86 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Another, though a somewhat later, effect of these
migrations was to bring Science into contact with
Rhetoric, one of the most characteristic products of
Western Hellas. Already in Parmenides we may note
the presence of that dialectical and controversial spirit
which was destined to have so great an influence on
Greek thought, and it was just this fusion of the art of
arguing for victory with the search for truth that
before long gave birth to Logic.

The religious 323. Most important of all in its influence on
eae philosophy was the religious revival which culminated
about this time. The religion of continental Hellas
had developed in a very different way from that of
Ionia. In particular, the worship of Dionysos, which
came from Thrace, and is barely mentioned in Homer,
contained in germ a wholly new way of looking at
man’s relation to the world. It would certainly be
wrong to credit the Thracians themselves with any
very exalted views ; but there can be no doubt that, to
the Greeks, the phenomenon of ecstasy suggested that
the soul was something more than a feeble double of
the self, and that it was only when “ out of the body”
it could show its true nature.’ Toa less extent, such
ideas were also suggested by the worship of Demeter,
whose mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis ; though, in
later days, these came to take the leading place in
men’s minds. That was because they were incorporated’
in the public religion of Athens.

Before the time with which we are dealing, tradition
shows us dimly an age of inspired prophets—Bakides

1 On all this, see Rohde, Psyche, pp. 327 sqq. It is probable that he
exaggerated the degree to which these ideas were already developed among
the Thracians, but the essential connexion of the new view of the soul with

᾿ Northern worships is confirmed by the tradition over and over again.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 87

and Sibyls—followed by one of strange medicine-men

like Abaris and Aristeas of Prokonnesos. With

Epimenides of Crete, we touch the fringe of history,

while Pherekydes of Syros is the contemporary of the

early cosmologists, and we still have some fragments

of his discourse. It looked as if Greek religion were

about to enter upon the same stage as that already

reached by the religions of the East ; and, but for the

rise of science, it is hard to see what could have checked

this tendency. It is usual to say that the Greeks were

saved from a religion of the Oriental type by their

having no priesthood ; but this is to mistake the effect

for the cause. Priesthoods do not make dogmas,

though they preserve them once they are made; and

in the earlier stages of their development, the Oriental

peoples had no priesthoods either in the sense intended.’

It was not so much the absence of a priesthood as the

existence of the scientific schools that saved Greece. "
34. The new religion—for in one sense it was new, The Orphic

though in another as old as mankind—reached its —

highest point of development with the foundation of

the Orphic communities. So far as we can see, the

original home of these was Attika; but they spread

with extraordinary rapidity, especially in Southern

Italy and Sicily.2 They were first of all associations

for the worship of Dionysos; but they were dis-

tinguished by two features which were new among the

Hellenes. They looked to a revelation as the source Ὁ

:

7
1
‘
t

1 See Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 461. The exaggerated rdle
often attributed to priesthoods is a survival of French eighteenth century
thinking. :

2 See E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. §§ 453-460, who rightly
emphasises the fact that the Orphic theogony is the continuation of
Hesiod’s work. As we have seen, some of it is even older than
Hesiod.

88 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

of religious authority, and they were organised as
artificial communities. The poems which contained
their theology were ascribed to the Thracian Orpheus,
who had himself descended into Hades, and was
therefore a safe guide through the, perils which beset
the disembodied soul in the next world. We have
considerable remains of this literature, but they are
mostly of late date, and cannot safely be used as
evidence for the beliefs of the sixth century. We do
know, however, that the leading ideas of Orphicism
were quite early, A number of thin gold plates with
Orphic verses inscribed on them have been discovered
in Southern Italy ;' and though these are somewhat
later in date than the period with which we are
dealing, they belong to the time when Orphicism was
a living creed and not a fantastic revival. What can
be made out from them as to the doctrine has a
startling resemblance to the beliefs which were
prevalent in India about the same time, though it
seems impossible that there should have been any
actual contact between India and Greece at this date.
The main purpose of the Orgia” was to “ purify” the
believer’s soul, and so enable it to escape from the
“wheel of birth,” and it was for the better attainment of
this end that the Orphics were organised in communities.
Religious associations must have been known to the
Greeks from a fairly early date;* but the oldest of

1 For the gold plates of Thourioi and Petelia, see the Appendix to Miss
Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, where the text of
them is discussed and a translation given by Professor Gilbert Murray.

2. This was the oldest name for these ** mysteries,” and it simply means
‘*sacraments” (cf. gopya). Ογρία are not necessarily ‘‘ orgiastic.”” That
association of ideas merely comes from the fact that they belonged to the
worship of Dionysos.

3 Herodotos mentions that Isagoras and those of his γένος worshipped

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 89

these were based, at least in theory, on the tie of
kindred blood. What was new was the institution of
communities to which any one might be admitted by
initiation.’ This was, in fact, the establishment of
churches, though there is no evidence that.these were
connected with each other in such a way that we
could rightly speak of them asa single church. The
Pythagoreans came nearer to realising that.

35. We have to take account of the religious
revival here, chiefly because it suggested the view that
philosophy was above all a “ way of life.” Science too
was a “purification,” a méans of € escape from the
“wheel.” This is the view expressed so strongly in
Plato’s Phaedo, which was written under the influence
of Pythagorean ideas.” Sokrates became to his
followers the ideal “ wise man,” and it was to this side
of his personality the Cynics mainly attached themselves.
From them proceeded the Stoic sage and the Christian
saint, and also the whole brood of impostors whom
Lucian has pilloried for our edification.2 Saints and
sages are apt to appear in questionable shapes, and

the-Karian Zeus (v. 66), and it is probable that the Orgeones attached by
Kleisthenes to the Attic 2 γαζγίαξ were associations of this kind. See
Foucart, Les associations religieuses chez les Grecs,

1 A striking parallel is afforded to all this by what we are told in
Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, p. 339. ‘* The leading feature
that distinguished them” (the Semitic mysteries of the seventh century
B.C.) **from the old public cults with which they came into competition, is
that they were not based on the principle of nationality, but sought
recruits from men of every race who were willing to accept initiation
through the mystic sacraments.”

2 The Phaedo is dedicated, as it were, to Echekrates and the
Pythagorean society. at Phleious, and it is evident that Plato in his youth
was impressed by the religious side of Pythagoreanism, though the
influence of Pythagorean science is not clearly marked till a later period.
Note specially the ἄτραπος of Phd. 66 b4. In Rep. x. 600b 1, Plato
speaks of Pythagoras as the originator of a private ὁδός τις βίου.

3 Cf. especially the point of view of the Auction of Lives (Βίων πρᾶσι5).

Philosophy as
a Way of Life.

No doctrine
in the
‘« Mysteries.””

90 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Apollonios of Tyana showed in the end where this
view may lead. It was not wholly absent from any
Greek philosophy after the days of Pythagoras,
Aristotle is as much possessed by it as any one, as we
may see from the Tenth Book of the Ethics, and as we
should see still more distinctly if we possessed such
works as the Protreptikos in their entirety.’ Plato,
indeed, tried to make the ideal wise man of service to
the state and mankind by his doctrine of the philosopher
king. It was he alone, so far as we know, that
insisted on philosophers descending by turns into the
cave from which they had been released and coming
to the help of their former fellow-prisoners.” That was
not, however, the view that prevailed, and the “ wise
man” became more and more detached from the
world. Apollonios of Tyana was quite entitled to
regard himself as the spiritual heir of Pythagoras ; for
the theurgy and thaumaturgy of the late Greek schools
was but the fruit of the seed sown in the generation
before the Persian Wars.

36. On the other hand, it would be wrong to
suppose that Orphicism or the Mysteries suggested any
definite doctrines to philosophers, at least during the
period which we are about to consider. We have
admitted that they really implied a new view of the
soul, and we might therefore have expected to find
that they profoundly modified men’s theory of the
world and their relation to it. The striking thing is

1 For the Προτρεπτικός of Aristotle, see Bywater in 7. Phil. ii. p. 553
Diels in Arch. i. p. 477; and the notes on Z¢hics, i. 5, in my edition.

2 Plato, Rep. 520 c 1, καταβατέον οὖν ἐν μέρει. The allegory of the
Cave seems to be Orphic, and I believe Professor Stewart’s suggestion
(Myths of Plato, p. 252, n. 2), that Plato had the κατάβασις εἰς “Acdov in

mind, to be quite justified. The idea of rescuing the ‘spirits in prison ἢ
is thoroughly Orphic.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION ΟΙ

that this did not happen. Even those philosophers
who were most closely in touch with the religious
movement, like Empedokles and thé Pythagoreans,
held views about the soul which really contradicted

the theory implied by their religious practices.' There |

is no room for an immortal soul in any philosophy of
this period. Up to Plato’s time immortality was
never treated in a scientific way, but merely assumed
in the Orphic rites, to which Plato half seriously turns
for confirmation of his own teaching.’

All this is easily accounted for. With us a
religious revival generally means the vivid realisation
of a new or forgotten doctrine, while ancient religion
has properly no doctrine at all. “The initiated,”
Aristotle said, “were not expected to learn anything,
but merely to be affected in a certain way and put
into acertain frame of mind.”* Nothing was required
but that the ritual should be correctly performed, and
the worshipper was free to give any explanation of
it he pleased. It might be as exalted as that of
Pindar and Sophokles, or as material as that of the
itinerant mystery-mongers described by Plato in the
Republic. The essential thing was that he should
duly sacrifice his pig.

I. PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS

37. It is no easy task to give an account of Pytha-
. goras that can claim to be regarded as history. Our

1 For Empedokles, see § 119; for the Pythagoreans, see § 149.

2 Cf. Phd. 69 ς 2, καὶ κινδυνεύουσι καὶ οἱ τὰς τελετὰς ἡμῖν οὗτοι
καταστήσαντες οὐ φαῦλοί τινες εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὄντι πάλαι αἰνίττεσθαι
k.t.X%. The gentle irony of this and similar passages ought to be
unmistakable.

8 Arist. fr. 45, 1483 a 19, τοὺς τελουμένους οὐ μαθεῖν τι δεῖν, ἀλλὰ
παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι.

Character of
the tradition,

Ww Qe . ὶ 5
‘ig natives of Southern Italy, and contemporary with the

92 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

principal sources of information’ are the Lives com-
posed by Iamblichos, Porphyry, and Laertios Diogenes.
That of Iamblichos is a wretched compilation, based
chiefly on the work of the arithmetician Nikomachos
of Gerasa in Judaea, and the romance of Apollonios
of Tyana, who regarded himself as a second Pythagoras,
and accordingly took great liberties with his materials.”
Porphyry stands, as a writer, on a far higher level than
Iamblichos ; but his authorities do not inspire us with
more confidence. He, too, made use of Nikomachos,
and of a certain novelist called Antonius Diogenes,
author of a work entitled Marvels from beyond Thule?
Diogenes quotes, as usual, a considerable number of
authorities, and the statements he makes must be
estimated according to the nature of the sources from
which they were drawn.* So far, it must be con-
fessed, our material does not seem promising. Further
examination shows, however, that a good many
fragments of two much older authorities, Aristoxenos
and Dikaiarchos, are embedded in the mass. These
writers were both disciples of Aristotle; they were

last generation of the Pythagorean school. Both

1 See E. Rohde’s admirable papers, ‘‘ Die Quellen des Iamblichus in

- seiner Biographie des Pythagoras” (74. Mus. xxvi., xxvii.).

2 Tamblichos was a disciple of Porphyry, and contemporary with
Constantine. The Life of Pythagoras has been edited by Nauck (1884).
Nikomachos belongs to the beginning of the second century A.D. There‘is
no evidence that he added anything to the authorities he followed, but these
were already vitiated by Neopythagorean fables. Still, it is to him we
chiefly owe the preservation of the valyable evidence of Aristoxenos.

3 Porphyry’s Lzfe of Pythagoras is the only considerable extract from his
History of Philosophy, in four books, that has survived. The romance of
Antonius is the original parodied by Lucian in his Vera Historia.

4 The importance of the life in Laertios Diogenes lies in the fact that
it gives us the story current at Alexandria before the rise of Neopytha-
goreanism and the promulgation of the gospel according to Apollonios
of Tyana,

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 93

wrote accounts of Pythagoras; and Aristoxenos, who
was personally intimate with the last representatives
of scientific Pythagoreanism, also made a collection
of the sayings of his friends. Now the Neopythagorean
story, as we have it in lamblichos, is a tissue of
incredible and fantastic myths; but, if we sift out
the statements which go back to Aristoxenos and
Dikaiarchos, we can easily construct a rational narrative,
in which Pythagoras appears not as a miracle-monger
and religious innovator, but simply as a moralist and
statesman. We might then be tempted to suppose
that this is the genuine tradition ; but that would be
altogether a mistake. There is, in fact, a third and
still earlier stratum in the Lives, and this agrees with
the latest accounts in representing Pythagoras as a
wonder-worker and a religious reformer.

Some of the most striking miracles of Pythagoras
are related on the authority of Andron’s Tripod, and
_ of Aristotle’s work on the Pythagoreans.' Both these
treatises belong to the fourth century B.c, and
are therefore untouched by Neopythagorean fancies.
Further, it is only by assuming the still earlier
existence of this view that we can explain the allusions
of Herodotos. The Hellespontine Greeks told him
that Salmoxis or Zamolxis had been a slave of
Pythagoras,’ and Salmoxis is a figure of the same
class as Abaris and Aristeas.

1 Andron of Ephesos wrote a work on the Seven Wise Men, called
The Tripod, in allusion to the well-known story. The feats ascribed to
Pythagoras in the Aristotelian treatise remind us of an ecclesiastical legend.
For example, he kills a deadly snake by biting it ; he was seen at Kroton
and Metapontion at the same time; he exhibited his golden thigh at
Olympia, and was addressed by a voice from heaven when crossing the
river Kasas. The same’ authority stated that he was identified by the
Krotoniates with Apollo Hyperboreios (Arist. fr. 186).

* Herod. iv. 95.

Life of Pytha-
goras.

94 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

It seems, then, that both the oldest and the latest
accounts agree in representing Pythagoras as a man
of the class to which Epimenides and Onomakritos
belonged—in fact, as a sort of “medicine-man”; but,
for some reason, there was an attempt to save his
memory from this imputation, and that attempt
belonged to the fourth century B.c. The significance
of this will appear in the sequel.

38. We may be said to know for certain that
Pythagoras passed his early manhood at Samos, and
was the son of Mnesarchos ;! and he “ flourished,” we
are told, in the reign of Polykrates.* This date
cannot be far wrong; for Herakleitos already speaks
of him in the past tense.°

The extensive travels attributed to Pythagoras by
late writers are, of course, apocryphal. Even the
statement that he visited Egypt, though far from
improbable if we consider the close relations between
Polykrates of Samos and Amasis, rests on no sufficient .
authority. Herodotos, it is true, observes that the

1 Cf. Herod. iv. 95, and Herakleitos, fr. 17 (R. P. 31 a). Herodotos
represents him as living at Samos. On the other hand, Aristoxenos said
that he came from one of the islands which the Athenians occupied after
expelling the Tyrrhenians (Diog. viii. 1). This suggests Lemnos, from
which the Tyrrhenian ‘‘ Pelasgians ” were expelled by Miltiades (Herod. vi.
140), or possibly some other island which was occupied at the same time.
There were also Tyrrhenians at Imbros. This explains the story that he
was an Etrurian or a Tyrian. Other accounts bring him into connexion
with Phleious, but that is perhaps a pious invention of the Pythagorean
society which flourished there at the beginning of the fourth century B.c.
Pausanias (ii. 13, 1) gives it as a Phleiasian tradition that Hippasos, the
great-grandfather of Pythagoras, had emigrated from Phleious to Samos.

2 Eratosthenes identified Pythagoras with the Olympic victor of ΟἹ.
XLVIII. 1 (588/7 B.c.), but Apollodoros gave his foruzt as 532/1, the era
of Polykrates. He doubtless based this on the statement of Aristoxenos
quoted by Porphyry (V. Pyzh. 9), that Pythagoras left Samos from dislike
to the tyranny of Polykrates (R. P. 53a). For a full discussion, see Jacoby,
pp. 215 sqq. 3 Herakl. fr. 16, 17 (R. P. 31, 31 a).

4 It occurs first in the Boustrzs of Isokrates, § 28 (R. P. 52).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 95

Egyptians agreed in certain practices with the rules
called Orphic and Bacchic, which are really Egyptian,
and with the Pythagoreans ;' but this does not imply
that the Pythagoreans derived these directly from
Egypt. He says also in another place that the belief
in transmigration came from Egypt, though certain
Greeks, both at an earlier and a later date, had passed
it off as their own. He refuses, however, to give their
names, so he can hardly be referring to Pythagoras.’
Nor does it matter; for the Egyptians did not believe
in transmigration at all, and Herodotos was simply
deceived by the priests or the symbolism of the
monuments.

Aristoxenos said that Pythagoras left Samos in
order to escape from the tyranny of Polykrates.? It
was at Kroton, a city already famous for its medical
school,* that he founded his society. How long he
remained there we do not know; he died at Meta-
pontion, whither he had retired on the first signal of
revolt against his influence.°

1 Herod. ii, 81 (R. P. 52 4). The comma at Αἰγυπτίοισι is clearly right.
Herodotos believed that the worship of Dionysos was introduced from
Egypt by Melampous (ii. 49), and he means to suggest that the Orphics got
these practices from the worshippers of Bakchos, while the Pythagoreans
got them from the Orphics.

2 Herod. ii. 123 (R. P. zd.). The words ‘‘whose names I know, but
do not write” cannot refer to Pythagoras ; for it is only of contemporaries
that Herodotos speaks in this way (cf. i. 51 ; iv. 48). Stein’s suggestion that
he meant Empedokles seems to me convincing. Herodotos may have met
him at Thourioi. Nor is there any reason to suppose that of μὲν πρότερον
refers specially to the Pythagoreans. If Herodotos had ever heard of
Pythagoras visiting Egypt, he would surely have said so in one or other of
these passages. There was no occasion for reserve, as Pythagoras must
have died before Herodotos was born.

3 Porph. Κ Pyth. 9 (R. P. 53 a).

4 From what Herodotos tells us of Demokedes (iii. 131) we can see that
the medical school of Kroton was founded before the time of Pythagoras.

Cf. Wachtler, De Alcmacone Crotoniata, p. 91.
5 It may be taken as certain that Pythagoras spent his last days at

The Order.

96 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

39. There is no reason to believe that the detailed
statements which have been handed down with regard
to the organisation of the Pythagorean Order rest upon
any historical basis, and in the case of many of them
we can still see how they came to be made. The
distinction of grades within the Order, variously called
Mathematicians and Akousmatics, Esoterics and Exoterics,
Pythagoreans and Pythagorists,' isan invention designed
to explain how there came to be two widely different
sets of people, each calling themselves disciples of
Pythagoras, in the fourth century B.C. So, too, the
statement that the Pythagoreans were bound to
inviolable secrecy, which goes back to Aristoxenos,’
is intended to explain why there is no trace of the
Pythagorean philosophy proper before Philolaos.** “Ὁ

The Pythagorean Order was simply, in its origin, a
religious fraternity of the type described above, and not,

_“as has sometimes been maintained, a political league.*

Nor had it anything to do with the “ Dorian aristocratic

Metapontion ; Aristoxenos said so (af. Iambl. VY. Pyth. 249), and Cicero
(De Fin. v. 4) speaks of the honours which continued to be paid to his
memory in that city (R. P. 57 ο). Cf. also Andron, fr. 6 (7.Z.G. ii. 347).

1 For these distinctions, see Porphyry (V. Pyth. 37) and Iamblichos
(V. Pyth. 80), quoted R. P. 56 and 56b. The name ἀκουσματικοί is clearly
related to the ἀκούσματα, with which we shall have to deal shortly (8 44).

2 For the “‘mystic silence,” see Aristoxenos, af. Diog. viii. 15 (R. P. 55 a).
Tannery, ‘‘ Sur le secret dans l’école de Pythagore” (Arch. i. pp. 28 544.),
thinks that the mathematical doctrines were the secrets of the school, and
that these were divulged by Hippasos; but the most reasonable view is
that there were no secrets at all except of a ritual kind.

3 Plato, Rep. x. 600 a, implies that Pythagoras held. no public office.
The view that the Pythagorean sect was a political league, maintained in
modern times by Krische (De soctetatis a Pythagora conditae scopo politico,
1830), goes back, as Rohde has shown (σε. cit.), to Dikaiarchos, the
champion of the ‘‘ Practical Life,” just as the view that it was primarily a
scientific society goes back to the mathematician and musician Aristoxenos,
The former antedated Archytas, just as the latter antedated Philolaos (see
Chap. VII. § 138). Grote’s good sense enabled him to see this quite clearly

(vol. iv. pp. 329 sqq.).

Ν SCIENCE AND RELIGION 97

ideal.” Pythagoras was an Ionian, and the Order was
originally confined to Achaian states, Nor is there the
slightest evidence that the Pythagoreans favoured the
aristocratic rather than the democratic party.”) The
main purpose of the Order was to secure for its own
members a more adequate satisfaction of the religious
instinct than that supplied by the State religion. It
was, in fact, an institution for the cultivation of holi-
ness. In this respect it resembled an Orphic society,
though it seems that Apollo, rather than Dionysos,
was the chief Pythagorean god. That is doubtless
why the Krotoniates identified Pythagoras with Apollo
Hyperboreios.*? From the nature of the case, however,
an independent society within a Greek state was apt
to be brought into conflict with the larger body. The

1 Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 502, Anm. It is still necessary
to insist upon this, as the idea that the Pythagoreans represented the
** Dorian ideal” dies very hard. In his Kudlturhistorische Beitrage (Heft
i. p. 59), Max C. P. Schmidt imagines that later writers call the founder
of the sect Pythagoras instead of Pythagores, as he is called by Herakleitos
and Demokritos, because he had become ‘‘a Dorian of the Dorians.”
The fact is simply that Πυθαγόρας is the Attic form of Πυθαγόρης, and
that the writers in question wrote Attic. Similarly, Plato calls Archytas,
who did belong to a Dorian state, Archytes, though Aristoxenos and others
retained the Dorian form of his name.

2 Kylon, the chief opponent of the Pythagoreans, is described by
Aristoxenos (Iambl. V. Pyth. 248) as γένει καὶ δόξῃ καὶ πλούτῳ πρωτεύων
τῶν πολιτῶν. Taras, later the chief seat of the Pythagoreans, was a
democracy. The truth is that, at this time, the new religion appealed to.
the people rather than the aristocracies, which were apt to be “‘free-
thinking” (Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iii, § 252). Xenophanes, not Pyth-
agoras, is their man.

3 We have the authority of Aristotle, fr. 186, 1510 b 20, for the identifica-
tion of Pythagoras with Apollo Hyperboreios. The names of Abaris and
Aristeas stand for a mystical movement parallel to the Orphic, but based
on the worship of Apollo. The later tradition makes them predecessors of
Pythagoras; and that this has some historical basis, appears from Herod.
iv. 13 sqq., and above all from the statement that Aristeas had a statue at
Metapontion, where Pythagoras died. The connexion of Pythagoras with
Zamolxis belongs to the same order of ideas. As the legend of the Hyper-
boreans is Delian, we see that the religion taught by Pythagoras was
genuinely Ionian in its origin.

7

4λ ν Ὁ" , ἷ

98 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

only way in which it could then assert its right to
exist was by identifying the State with itself, that is,

by securing the control of the sovereign power. The

history of the Pythagorean Order, so far as it can be
traced, is, accordingly, the history of an attempt to
supersede the State; and its political action is to be
explained as a mere incident of that attempt.

40. For a time the new Order seems actually to
have succeeded in securing the supreme power, but
reaction came at last. Under the leadership of Kylon,
a wealthy noble, Kroton was able to assert itself
victoriously against the Pythagorean domination. This,
we may well believe, had been galling enough. The
“rule of the saints” would be nothing to it; and we
can still imagine and sympathise with the irritation felt
by the plain man of those days at having his legislation
done for him by a set of incomprehensible pedants, who
made a point of abstaining from beans, and would not
let him beat his own dog because they recognised in
its howls the voice of a departed friend ‘(Xenophanes, 7
fr. 7). This feeling would be aggravated by the private
religious worship of the Society. Greek states could
never pardon the introduction of new gods. Their
objection to this was not, however, that the gods in
question were false gods. If they had been, it would
not have mattered so much. What they could not
tolerate was that any one should establish a private
means of communication between himself and the
unseen powers. That introduced an unknown and
incalculable element into the arrangements of the
State, which might very likely be hostile to those citizens
who had no means of propitiating the intruding divinity.

Aristoxenos’s version of the events which led to the

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 99

downfall of the Pythagorean Order is given at length
by Iamblichos, According to this, Pythagoras had
refused to receive Kylon into his Society, and he there- \—
fore became a bitter foe of the Order. From this
cause Pythagoras removed from Kroton to Metapontion, ,
where he died. The Pythagoreans, however, still
retained possession of the government of Kroton, till
at last the partisans of Kylon set fire to Milo’s house,
where they were assembled. Of those in the house
only two, Archippos and Lysis, escaped. Archippos
retired to Taras; Lysis, first to Achaia and then to
Thebes, where he became later on the teacher of
Epameinondas. The Pythagoreans who remained |
concentrated themselves at Rhegion ; but, as things went
from bad to worse, they all left Italy except Archippos.) “

This account has all the air of being historical.
The mention of Lysis proves, however, that those
events were spread over more than one generation.
The coup d’4at of Kroton can hardly have occurred
before 450 B.C, if the teacher of Epameinondas
escaped from it, and it may well have been even later.
But it must have been before 410 B.C. that the
Pythagoreans left Rhegion for Hellas; Philolaos was
certainly at Thebes about that time.”

1 See Rohde, RA. Mus. xxvi. p. 565, n. 1. The narrative in the text
{Iambl. V. Pyth. 250; R. P. 59 b) ‘goes back to Aristoxenos and
Dikaiarchos (R. P, 59 a). There is no reason to suppose that their view of
Pythagoras has vitiated their account of what must have been a perfectly
well-known piece of history. According to the later story, Pythagoras
himself was burned to death in the house of Milo, along with his disciples.
This is merely a dramatic compression of the whole series of events into a
single scene ; we have seen that Pythagoras died at Metapontion before the
final catastrophe. The valuable reference in Polybios ii. 39 (R. P. 59) to
the burning of Pythagorean συνέδρια certainly implies that the disturbances
went on for a very considerable time.

2 Plato, Phd. 61 ἃ 7, e 7.

Want of
evidence as to
the teaching of
Pythagoras.

100 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The political power of the Pythagoreans as an
Order was now gone for ever, though we shall see that
some of them returned to Italy at a later date. In
exile they seem to have dropped the merely magical
and superstitious parts of their system, and this enabled
them to take their place as one of the scientific schools
of Hellas.

41. Of the opinions of Pythagoras we know even
less than of his life. Aristotle clearly knew nothing
for certain of ethical or physical doctrines going back
to the founder of the Society himself.’ Aristoxenos
only gave a string of moral precepts.” Dikaiarchos is
quoted by Porphyry as asserting that hardly anything
of what Pythagoras taught his disciples was known
except the doctrine of transmigration, the periodic
cycle, and the kinship of all living creatures.* The
fact is, that, like all teachers who introduce a new way
of living rather than a new view of the world, Pythagoras
preferred oral instruction to the dissemination of his
opinions by writing, and it was not till Alexandrian
times that any one ventured to forge books in his

1 When discussing the Pythagorean system, Aristotle always refers it to
**the Pythagoreans,” not to Pythagoras himself. That this was intentional
seems to be proved by the phrase of καλούμενοι Πυθαγόρειοι, which occurs
more than once (¢.g. JZet. A, 5. 985 Ὁ 23; ade Caelo, B, 13. 293 a 20).
Pythagoras himself is only thrice mentioned in the whole Aristotelian corpus,
and in only one of these places (77. Mor. 1182 a 11) is any philosophical
doctrine ascribed to him. We are told there that he was the first to discuss.
the subject of goodness, and that he made the mistake of identifying its
various forms with numbers. But this is just one of the things which prove
the late date of the agua Moralia. Aristotle himself is quite clear that
what he knew as the Pythagorean system belonged in the main to the days
of Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Leukippos ; for, after mentioning these,
he goes on to describe the Pythagoreans as ‘‘ contemporary with and earlier
than them” (ἐν δὲ τούτοις καὶ πρὸ τούτων, 7722. A, 5. 985 b 23).

2 The fragments of the Τυθαγορικαὶ ἀποφάσεις of Aristoxenos are given
by Diels, Vors. pp. 282 sqq.

3 V. Pyth. 19 (R. P. 55).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION IOI

name. The writings ascribed to the earliest Pytha-
goreans were also forgeries of the same period.' The
early history of Pythagoreanism is, therefore, wholly
conjectural; but we may still make an attempt to
understand, in a very general way, what the position
of Pythagoras in the history of Greek thought must
have been.

42. In the first place, then, there can be no doubt Transmigra-
that he really taught the doctrine of transmigration.” ὡς
The story told by the Greeks of the Hellespont and
Pontos as to his relations with Salmoxis could never
have gained currency by the time of Herodotos if he
had not been known as a man who taught strange
views of the life after death.® Now the doctrine of
transmigration is most easily to be explained as a
development of the savage belief in the kinship of men
and beasts, as all alike children of the Earth,* a view
which Dikaiarchos said Pythagoras certainly held.
Further, among savages, this belief is commonly
associated with a system of taboos on certain kinds of
food, and the Pythagorean rule is best known for its
prescription of similar forms of abstinence. This in
itself goes far to show that it originated in the same
ideas, and we have seen that the revival of these would
be quite natural in connexion with the foundation of
a new religious society. There is a further considera-

1 See Diels, Dox. p. 150; and ‘‘Ein gefalschtes Pythagorasbuch”
(Arch. iii. pp. 451 sqq.). Cf. also Bernays, Die Heraklitischen Briefe,
zs The proper Greek term for this is παλιγγενεσία, and the inaccurate
μετεμψύχωσις only occurs in late writers. Hippolytos and Clement of
Alexandria say μετενσωμάτωσις, which is accurate but cumbrous. See
Rohde, Psyche, p. 428, n. 2.

8. On the significance of this, see above, p. 93.

4 Dieterich, ‘* Mutter Erde” (Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft, viii. pp.
29 and 47).

Abstinence.

102 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

tion which tells strongly in the same direction. In
India we have a precisely similar doctrine, and yet it
is not possible’ to assume any actual borrowing of
Indian ideas at this date. The only explanation
which will account for the facts is that the two systems
were independently evolved from the same primitive
ideas. These are found in many parts of the world ;
but it seems to have been only in India and in Greece
that they were developed into an elaborate doctrine.
43. It has indeed been doubted whether we have
a right to accept what we are told by such late writers
as Porphyry on the subject of Pythagorean abstinence.
Aristoxenos, whom we have admitted to be one of our
earliest witnesses, may be cited to prove that the
original Pythagoreans knew nothing of these restric-
tions on the use of animal flesh and beans. He
undoubtedly said that Pythagoras did not abstain from
animal flesh in general, but only from that of the
ploughing ox and the ram.’ He also said that Pytha-
goras preferred beans to every other vegetable, as being
the most laxative, and that he was partial to sucking-
pigs and tender Κι 5.2 Aristoxenos, however, is a witness
who very often breaks down under cross-examination,
and the palpable exaggeration of these statements
shows that he is endeavouring ‘to combat ἃ belief

1 Aristoxenos af. Diog. viii. 20, πάντα μὲν τὰ ἄλλα συγχωρεῖν αὐτὸν
ἐσθίειν ἔμψυχα, μόνον δ᾽ ἀπέχεσθαι Bods ἀροτῆρος καὶ κριοῦ.

2. Aristoxenos af. Gell. iv. 11,-5, Πυθαγόρας δὲ τῶν ὀσπρίων μάλιστα τὸν
κύαμον ἐδοκίμασεν" λειαντικόν τε γὰρ εἶναι καὶ διαχωρητικόν " διὸ καὶ
μάλιστα κέχρηται αὐτῷ ; 2b. 6, ‘* porculis quoque minusculis et haedis teneri-
oribus victitasse, idem Aristoxenus refert.” It is, of course, possible that
Aristoxenos may be right about the taboo on beans. We know that it
was Orphic, and it may have been transferred to the Pythagoreans by
mistake. That, however, would not affect the general conclusion that at
least some Pythagoreans practised abstinence from various kinds of food,
which is all that is required.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 103

which existed in his own day. We are therefore able
to show, out of his own mouth, that the tradition which
made the Pythagoreans abstain from animal flesh and
beans goes back to a time long before there were any
Neopythagoreans interested in upholding it. Still, it
may be asked what motive Aristoxenos could have had
for denying the common belief? The answer is simple
and instructive. He had been the friend of the last
of the Pythagoreans; and, in their time, the merely
superstitious part of Pythagoreanism had been dropped,
except by some zealots whom the heads of the Society
refused to acknowledge. That is why he represents
Pythagoras himself in so different a light from both
the older and the later traditions; it is because he
gives us the view of the more enlightened sect of the
Order. Those who clung faithfully to the old practices
were now regarded as heretics, and all manner of
theories were set on foot to account for their existence.
It was related, for instance, that they descended from
one of the “ Akousmatics,” who had never been initiated
into the deeper mysteries of the “ Mathematicians.” *
All this, however, is pure invention. The satire of the
poets of the Middle Comedy proves clearly enough
that, even though the friends of Aristoxenos did not
practise abstinence, there were plenty of people in the
fourth century, calling themselves followers of Pytha-
goras, who did.? History has not been kind to the

1 The sect of the ‘* Akousmatics” was said to descend from Hippasos
(Iambl. V. Pyth. 81; R. P. 56). Now Hippasos was the author of a
μυστικὸς λόγος (Diog. viii. 7; R. P. 56 c), that is to say, of a superstitious
ceremonial or ritual handbook, probably containing Akousmata like those
we are about to consider; for we are told that it was written ἐπὲ διαβολῇ
᾿ Πυθαγόρου.

? Diels has collected these fragments in a convenient form (Vors. pp. 291
sqq.). For our purpose the most important passages are Antiphanes, fr. 135,

104 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Akousmatics, but they never wholly died out. The
names of Diodoros of Aspendos and Nigidius Figulus
help to bridge the gulf between them and Apollonios
of Tyana.

We know, then, that Pythagoras taught the kinship
of beasts and men, and we infer that his rule of

\ abstinence from flesh was based, not upon humanitarian

\

or ascetic grounds, but on taboo. This is strikingly
confirmed by a fact which we are told in Porphyry’s
Defence of Abstinence. The statement in question does
not indeed go back to Theophrastos, as so much of
1 but: it is, inzall
probability, due to Herakleides of Pontos, and is to the
effect that, though the Pythagoreans did as a rule

abstain from flesh, they nevertheless ate it when they

Porphyry’s tract certainly does;

sacrificed to the gods.” Now, among savage peoples,
we often find that the sacred animal is slain and eaten

Kock, ὥσπερ Πυθαγορίζων ἐσθίει | ἔμψυχον obdév; Alexis, fr. 220, of Πυθαγορί-
Sovres γάρ, ws ἀκούομεν, | οὔτ᾽ ὄψον ἐσθίουσιν οὔτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ οὐδὲ ἕν | ἔμψυχον ;
fr. 196 (from the Πυθαγορίζουσα), ἡ δ᾽ ἑστίασις ἰσχάδες καὶ στέμφυλα | καὶ
τυρὸς ἔσται" ταῦτα γὰρ θύειν νόμος | τοῖς Πυθαγορείοις ; Aristophon, fr. 9
(from the Πυθαγοριστήςξ), πρὸς τῶν θεῶν οἰόμεθα τοὺς πάλαι ποτέ, | τοὺς
Πυθαγοριστὰς γενομένους ὄντως ῥυπᾶν | ἑκόντας ἢ φορεῖν τριβῶνας ἡδέως ;
Mnesimachos, fr. 1, ὡς Πυθαγοριστὶ θύομεν τῷ Λοξίᾳ | ἔμψυχον οὐδὲν
ἐσθίοντες παντελῶς. See also Theokritos, xiv. 5, τοιοῦτος καὶ πρᾶν τις
ἀφίκετο ἸΠυθαγορικτάς, | ὠχρὸς κἀνυποδητός " ᾿Αθηναῖος δ᾽ ἔφατ᾽ ἦμεν.

1 See Bernays, Zheophrastos’ Schrift tiber Frimmigheit. Porphyry’s
tract, Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων, was doubtless saved from the general destruc-
tion of his writings by its conformity to the ascetic tendencies of the age.
Even St. Jerome made constant use of it in his polemic against Iovianus,
though he is careful not to mention Porphyry’s name ( 7heophr. Schr. n. 2).
The tract is addressed to Castricius Firmus, the disciple and friend of
Plotinos, who had fallen away from the strict vegetarianism of the
Pythagoreans.

2 The passage occurs De Adst. p. 58, 25 Nauck: ἱστοροῦσι δέ τινες καὶ
αὐτοὺς ἅπτεσθαι τῶν ἐμψύχων τοὺς ἸΤυθαγορείους, ὅτε θύοιεν θεοῖς. The
part of the work from which this is taken comes from one Clodius, on
whom see Bernay, Zheophr. Schr. p. 11. He was probably the rhetorician
Sextus Clodius, and a contemporary of Cicero. Bernays has shown that he
made use of the work of Herakleides of Pontos (24. n. 19). On ‘* mystic
sacrifice” generally, see Robertson Smith, Re/. Sem. i. p. 276.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 105

sacramentally by its kinsmen on certain solemn
occasions, though in ordinary circumstances this would
be the greatest of all impieties. Here, again, we have
to do with a very primitive belief; and we need not
therefore attach any weight to the denials of
Aristoxenos.!

44. We shall now know what to think of the various Afousmata.
Pythagorean rules and precepts which have come down
to us. These are of two kinds, and have very different
sources. Some of them, derived from the collection of
Aristoxenos, and for the most part preserved by _~
Iamblichos, are mere precepts of morality. They do
not pretend to go back to Pythagoras himself; they
are only the sayings which the last generation of
“ Mathematicians” heard from their predecessors.2 The
second class is of a very different nature, and the sayings
which belong to it are called Akousmata’ which points”
to their being the property of that sect of Pythagoreans
which had faithfully preserved the old customs. Later
writers interpret them as “symbols” of moral truth ;
but their interpretations are extremely far-fetched, and
it does not require a very practised eye to see that
they are genuine taboos of a thoroughly primitive type.

1 Porphyry (V. Pyth. c 15) has preserved a tradition to the effect that
Pythagoras recommended a flesh diet for athletes (Milo?). This story
must have originated at the same time as those related by Aristoxenos,
and in a similar way. In fact, Bernays has shown that it comes from
Herakleides of Pontos (7heophr. Schr. n. 8). Iamblichos (V. Pyth. 5. 25)
and others (Diog. viii. 13, 47) got out of this by supposing it referred to a
gymnast of the same name. We see here very distinctly how the
Neoplatonists for their own ends endeavoured to go back to the original
form of the Pythagorean legend, and to explain away the fourth century
reconstruction.

2 For these see Diels, Vors. pp. 282 sqq.

3 There is an excellent collection of ᾿Ακούσματα καὶ σύμβολα in Diels,
Vors. pp. 279 sqq., where the authorities will be found. It is impossible
to discuss these in detail here, but students of folklore will see at once to
what order of ideas they belong.

106

EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

I give a few examples in order that the reader may

judge what the famous Pythagorean rule of life was
really like.

ow AN RY ν τ

To abstain from beans.

Not to pick up what has fallen.
Not to touch a white cock.
Not to break bread.

Not to step over a crossbar.
Not to stir the fire with iron.
Not to eat from a whole loaf.
Not to pluck a garland.

Not to sit on a quart measure.
Not to eat the heart.

. Not to walk on highways.
. Not to let swallows share one’s roof.

13.

When the pot is taken off the fire, not to leave the

mark of it in the ashes, but to stir them together.

14.
15.

Do not look in a mirror beside a light.
When you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together

and smooth out the impress of the body.

It would be easy to multiply proofs of the close

connexion between’ Pythagoreanism and _ primitive
modes of thought, but what has been said is really
sufficient for our purpose. The kinship of men and
beasts, the abstinence from flesh, and the doctrine of
transmigration all hang together and form a perfectly

intelligible whole from the point of view which has been

Pythagoras
as a man of

eer
45. Were this all, we should be tempted to delete

AT ON the name of Pythagoras from the history of philosophy

altogether, and relegate him to the class of “ medicine-

men ”

(γόητες) along with Epimenides and Onomakritos.

This, however, would be quite wrong. As we shall see,

the Pythagorean Society became one of the chief scientific
schools of Hellas, and it is certain that Pythagorean

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 107

science as well as Pythagorean religion originated with
the master himself. Herakleitos, who is not partial to
him, says that Pythagoras had pursued scientific
investigation further than other men, though he also
says that he turned his much learning into an art of
mischief! Herodotos called Pythagoras “by no
means the weakest: sophist of the Hellenes,” a title
which at this date does not imply the slightest
disparagement.” Aristotle even said that Pythagoras
first busied himself with mathematics and numbers, and
that it was later on he attached himself to the miracle-
mongering of Pherekydes.? Is it possible for us to
trace any connexion between these two sides of his
activity ?

We have seen that the aim of the Orphic and other
Orgia was to obtain release from the “ wheel of birth”
by means of “ purifications,’ which were generally of
a very primitive type. The new thing in the Society
founded by Pythagoras seems to have been that, while
it admitted all these half-savage customs, it at the
same time suggested a more exalted idea of what
“purification” really was. Aristoxenos tells us that
the Pythagoreans employed music to purge the soul
as they used medicine to purge the body, and it is
abundantly clear that Aristotle’s famous theory of
κάθαρσις is derived from Pythagorean sources. Such

1 Herakl. fr. 17 (R. P. 31a). The word ἱστορίη is in itself quite general.
What it chiefly means here we see from a valuable notice preserved by
Iamblichos, V. Pyth. 89, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ ἡ γεωμετρία πρὸς Πυθαγόρου ἱστορία.
Tannery’s interpretation of this statement is based on a misunderstanding,
and need not be discussed here.

3 Herod. iv. 95.

* Arist. Περὶ τῶν Πυθαγορείων, fr. 186, 1510 a 39, Πυθαγόρας Μνησάρχου
vids τὸ μὲν πρῶτον dierovetro περὶ τὰ μαθήματα καὶ τοὺς ἀριθμούς, ὕστερον
δέ ποτε καὶ τῆς Φερεκύδου τερατοποιΐας οὐκ ἀπέστη.

4 Its immediate source is to be found in Plato, Zaws, 790 ἃ 2 sqq.,

108 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

methods of purifying the soul were familiar in the Orgia
of the Korybantes, and will serve to explain the
Pythagorean interest in Harmonics. But there is more
than this. If we can trust Herakleides so far, it was
Pythagoras who first distinguished the “three lives,”
the Theoretic, the Practical, and the Apolaustic, which
Aristotle made use of in the ζω. The general
theory of these lives is clear, and it is impossible to
doubt that in substance it belongs to the very beginning
of the school. It is to this effect. We are strangers in
this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet
we must not seek to escape by self-murder ; for we are
the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without
his command we have no right to make our escape.
In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there
are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic
, Games. The lowest class is made up of those whe
come to buy and sell, and next above them are those
who come to compete. Best of all, however, are those
Mea who come Aimply to look on (θεωρεῖν). The greatest
7 purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and ‘~~
it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true
philosopher, who has most effectually released himself
from the “wheel of birth.” It would be rash to say
that Pythagoras expressed himself exactly in this
manner ; but all these ideas are genuinely Pythagorean,
and it is only in some such way that we can bridge
the gulf which separates Pythagoras the man of science

where the Korybantic rites are adduced as an instance. For a full account
see Rohde, Psyche, p. 336, n. 2.

1 Plato gives this as the Pythagorean view in Phd. 62 Ὁ, for the
interpretation of which cf. Espinas in Arch. viii. pp. 449 sqq. Plato
distinctly implies that it was not merely the theory of Philolaos, but
something older.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 109

from Pythagoras the religious teacher... We must now
endeavour to discover how much of the later Pythagorean
science may reasonably be ascribed to Pythagoras
himself.

46. In his treatise on Arithmetic, Aristoxenos said Arithmetic.
that Pythagoras was the first to carry that study eS
beyond the needs of commerce,’ and his statement is
confirmed by everything we otherwise know. By the
end of the fifth century B.C., we find that there is a
widespread interest in such subjects and that these are
studied for their own sake. Now this new interest
cannot have been wholly the work of a school ; it must
have originated with some great man, and there is no
one but Pythagoras to whom we can refer it. As,
however, he wrote. nothing, we have no sure means of
distinguishing his own teaching from that of his
followers in the next generation or two. All we can
safely say is that, the more primitive any Pythagorean
doctrine appears, the more likely it is to be that of
Pythagoras himself, and all the more so if it can be
shown to have points of contact with views which we

1 See Doring in Avch. v. pp. 505sqq. There seems to be a reference to
the theory of the ‘‘ three lives” in Herakleitos, fr. 111. It was apparently
taught in the Pythagorean Society of Phleious; for Herakleides made
Pythagoras expound it in a conversation with the tyrant of Phleious
(Cic. Zusc. v. 3; Diog. pr. 12, viii. 8), and it is developed by Plato ina
dialogue which is, as it were, dedicated to Echekrates. If it should be
thought that this is interpreting Pythagoras too much in the light of
Schopenhauer, it may be answered that even the Orphics came very near
such a theory. The soul must not drink of Lethe, but go past it and
drink of the water of Memory, before it can claim to become one of the
heroes. This has obvious points of contact with Plato’s ἀνάμνησις, and the
only question is how much of the Phaedo we are to ascribe to Pythagorean
sources. A great deal, I suspect. See Prof. Stewart’s MZyhs of Plato,
PP. 152 sqq.

2 Stob. i. p. 20, 1, ἐκ τῶν ᾿Αριστοξένου περὶ ἀριθμητικῆς, Thy δὲ περὶ
τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς πραγματείαν μάλιστα πάντων τιμῆσαι δοκεῖ Πυθαγόρας καὶ
προαγαγεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσθεν ἀπαγαγὼν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἐμπόρων χρείας.

The figures.

I1O EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

know to have been held in his own time or shortly
before it. In particular, when we find the later
Pythagoreans teaching things that were already some-
thing of an anachronism in their own day, we may be
reasonably sure that we are dealing with survivals
which only the authority of the master’s name could
have preserved. Some of these must be mentioned at
once, though the developed system belongs to a later
part of our story. It is only by separating its earliest
form from its later that the true place of Pythagoreanism
in Greek thought can be made clear, though we must
always remember that no one can now pretend to
draw the line between its successive stages with any
certainty.

47. Now one of the most remarkable statements
that we have about Pythagoreanism is what we are told
of Eurytos on the unimpeachable authority of Archytas.
Eurytos was the disciple of Philolaos, and Aristoxenos
expressly mentioned him along with Philolaos as
having taught the last of the Pythagoreans, the men
with whom he himself was personally acquainted. He
therefore belongs to the beginning of the fourth century
B.C., by which time the Pythagorean system was fully
developed, and he was no eccentric enthusiast, but one
of the foremost men in the school.’ We are told
of him, then, that he used to give the number of
all sorts of things, such as horses and men, and
that he demonstrated these by arranging pebbles
in a certain way. It is to be noted further that
Aristotle compares his procedure to that of those

1 Apart from the story in Iamblichos (V. Pyth. 148) that Eurytos heard
the voice of Philolaos from the grave after he had been many years dead, it
is to be noticed that he is mentioned after him in the statement of
Aristoxenos referred to (Diog. viii. 46; R. P. 62).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION III

who bring numbers into figures like the triangle and
the square.’

Now these statements, and especially the remark of
Aristotle last quoted, seem to imply the existence at
this date, and earlier, of a numerical symbolism quite
distinct from the alphabetical notation on the one hand
and from the Euclidean representation of numbers by
lines on the other. The former was inconvenient for
arithmetical purposes, just because the zero was one of
the few things the Greeks did not invent, and they
were therefore unable to develop a really serviceable
numerical symbolism based on position. The latter,
as will appear shortly, is intimately bound up with
that absorption of arithmetic by geometry, which is at
least as old as Plato, but cannot be primitive.2 It
seems rather that numbers were represented by dots
arranged in symmetrical and easily recognised patterns,
of which the marking of dice or dominoes gives us the
best idea. And these markings are, in fact, the best
proof that this is a genuinely primitive method of
indicating numbers ; for they are of unknown antiquity,
and go back to the time when men could only count by
arranging numbers in such patterns, each of which became,
as it were, a fresh unit. This way of counting may well
be as old as reckoning with the fingers, or even older.

1 Arist. AZet. N, 5. 1092 Ὁ 8 (R. P. 76a). Aristotle does not quote the
authority of Archytas here, but the source of his statement is made quite
clear by Theophr. 2722. p. vi. a 19 (Usener), τοῦτο yap (sc. τὸ μὴ μέχρι
Tov προελθόντα παύεσθαι) τελέου καὶ φρονοῦντος, ὅπερ ᾿Αρχύτας wor’ ἔφη
ποιεῖν Εὔρυτον διατιθέντα τινὰς ψήφους" λέγειν γὰρ ὡς ὅδε μὲν ἀνθρώπου
ὁ ἀριθμός, ὅδε δὲ ἵππου, ὅδε δ᾽ ἄλλου τινὸς τυγχάνει.

2 Arithmetic is older than geometry, and was much more advanced in
Egypt, though still in the form which the Greeks called λογιστική rather
than as ἀριθμητική proper. Even Plato puts Arithmetic before Geometry
in the Republic in deference to the tradition. His own theory of number,
however, suggested the inversion of this order which we find carried out
in Euclid.

112 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

It is, therefore, very significant that we do not find
any adequate account of what Aristotle can have meant
by “those who bring numbers into figures like the
triangle and the square” till we come to certain late
writers who called themselves Pythagoreans, and
revived the study of arithmetic as a science inde-
pendent of geometry. These men not only abandoned
the linear symbolism of Euclid, but also regarded the
alphabetical notation, which they did use, as something —
conventional, and inadequate to represent the true
nature of number. Nikomachos of Gerasa says ex-
pressly that the letters used to represent numbers are
only significant by human usage and convention. The
most natural way would be to represent linear or prime
numbers by a row of units, polygonal numbers by units
arranged so as to mark out the various plane figures,
and solid numbers by units disposed in pyramids and
so forth. He therefore gives us figures like this :—

a aaa
a aa aaa

a aa aa aaa
aa aa aaa

aa aaa

Now it ought to be obvious that this is no innovation,
but, like so many things in Neopythagoreanism, a
reversion to primitive usage. Of course the employ-
ment of the letter a/pha to represent the units is derived
from the conventional notation ;. but otherwise we are
clearly in presence of something which belongs to the
very earliest stage of the science—something, in fact,

1 Nikomachos of Gerasa, /utrod. Arithm. Ὁ. 83, 12, Hoche, Πρότερον δὲ
ἐπιγνωστέον ὅτι ἕκαστον γράμμα @ σημειούμεθα ἀριθμόν, οἷον τὸ t, @ τὸ
δέκα, τὸ κ, ᾧ τὰ εἴκοσι, τὸ ὦ, ᾧ τὰ ὀκτακόσια, νόμῳ καὶ συνθήματι
ἀνθρωπίνῳ, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ φύσει σημαντικόν ἐστι τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ x.7.A. The same
symbolism is used by Theo, Zxfosztio, pp. 31 sqq. Cf. also lambl. “ηέγοα.
p. 56, 27, Pistelli, ἰστέον γὰρ ws τὸ παλαιὸν φυσικώτερον οἱ πρόσθεν
ἐσημαίνοντο τὰς τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ποσότητας, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ νῦν συμβολικῶς.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 113

which gives the only possible clue to the meaning of
Aristotle’s remark, and to what we are told of the
method of Eurytos.

48. This is still further confirmed by the tradition Triangular,

which represents the great revelation made by Pytha- κε στῶ Bes
goras to mankind as having been precisely a figure of a
this kind, namely the ¢etraktys, by which the Pytha-
goreans used to swear,' and we have no less an
authority than Speusippos for holding that the whole
theory which it implies was genuinely Pythagorean.”
In later days there were many kinds of ¢etrakiys, but
the original one, that by which the Pythagoreans
swore, was the “tetraktys of the dekad.” It was a
figure like this—

and represented the number ten as the triangle of four.
In other words, it showed at a glance that 1+2+3+
4=10. Speusippos tells us of several properties
which the Pythagoreans discovered in the dekad. It
is, for instance, the first number that has in it an equal
number of prime and composite numbers. How much

1 Cf. the formula Οὐ μὰ τὸν ἁμετέρᾳ γενεᾷ παραδόντα τετρακτύν,
which is all the more likely to be old that it is put into the mouth of
Pythagoras by the forger of the Χρυσᾷ ἔπη, thus making him swear by him-
self! See Diels, Arch. iii. p. 457. The Doric dialect shows, however,
that it belongs to the later generations of the school,

2 Speusippos wrote a work on the Pythagorean numbers, based chiefly
on Philolaos, and a considerable fragment of it is preserved in the
Theologumena Arithmetica. It will be found in Diels, Vorsokratzker,
Ῥ. 235, 15, and is discussed by Tannery, Sczence hel/éne, pp. 374 564.

3 For these see Theon, Zxfosztio, pp. 93 sqq. Hiller. The τετρακτύς
used by Plato in the Zimaeus is the second described by Theon (Zx/.
Ῥ. 94, 10 sqq.). It is no doubt Pythagorean, but hardly as old as
Pythagoras.

4 8

114 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

of this goes back to Pythagoras himself, we cannot
tell; but we are probably justified in referring to him
the conclusion that it is “according to nature” that all
Hellenes and barbarians count up to ten and then
begin over again.

It is obvious that the ¢etraktys may be indefinitely
extended so as to exhibit the sums of the series of
successive numbers in a graphic form, and these sums
are accordingly called “triangular numbers.”

For similar reasons, the sums of the series of
successive odd numbers are called “square numbers,”
and those of successive even numbers “oblong.” If
odd numbers are added to the unit in the form of
gnomons, the result is always a similar figure, namely a
square, while, if even numbers are added, we get a
series of rectangles,! as shown by the figure :—

Square Numbers. Oblong Numbers.
πον epeehite te : ἀπ ρα τόνον j diguseesers ἐ maskuacteke : pare
i setae Ἶ ἘΝ ᾿ : ἢ diveucnieys Ἴ sdb a ones ὃ ΚΘ Ὁ 7
ie : zl : i ἜΤ ΚΎΣΤΙΝ ΤᾺ x fioles ς :

It is clear, then, that we are entitled to refer the
study of sums of series to Pythagoras himself; but

1 Cf. Milhaud, Phzlosophes géométres, pp. 115 544. Aristotle puts the
matter thus (Piys. T, 4. 203 ἃ 13): περιτιθεμένων yap τῶν γνωμόνων περὶ
τὸ ἕν καὶ χωρὶς ὁτὲ μὲν ἄλλο del γίγνεσθαι τὸ εἶδος, ὁτὲ δὲ ἕν. This is
more clearly stated by Ps.-Plut. (Stob. i. p. 22, 16), Ἔτι δὲ τῇ μονάδι τῶν
ἐφεξῆς περισσῶν περιτιθεμένων ὁ γινόμενος ἀεὶ τετράγωνός ἐστι: τῶν δὲ
ἀρτίων ὁμοίως περιτιθεμένων ἑτερομήκεις καὶ ἄνισοι πάντες ἀποβαίνουσιν,
ἔσως δὲ ἰσάκις οὐδείς. I cannot feel satisfied with any of the explanations
which have been given of the words καὶ χωρίς in the Aristotelian passage
(see Zeller, p. 351, n. 2), and I would therefore suggest ταῖς χώραις, compar-
ing Boutheros (Stob. i. p. 19, 9), who says, according to the MS. reading,
Kal ὁ μὲν (ὁ περισσός), ὁπόταν γεννῶνται ἀνὰ λόγον καὶ πρὸς μονάδας,
ταῖς αὑτοῦ χώραις καταλαμβάνει τοὺς ταῖς γραμμαῖς περιεχομένους (sc.
ἀριθμούς).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 15

whether he went beyond the oblong, and studied
pyramidal or cubic numbers, we cannot say.’
49. It is easy to see how this way of representing Geometry and

| Σ harmonics.

numbers would suggest problems of a geometrical
nature. The dots which stand for the pebbles are
regularly called “boundary-stones” (ὅροι, dcermint,
“terms”), and the area which they occupy, or rather
mark out, is the “field” (χώρα). This is evidently
a very early way of speaking, and may therefore be
referred to Pythagoras himself. Now it must have
struck him that “fields” could be compared as well as
numbers,’ and it is even likely that he knew the rough
methods of doing this which were traditional in Egypt,
though certainly these would fail to satisfy him. -
Once more the tradition is singularly helpful in suggest-
ing the direction that his thoughts must have taken.
He knew, of course, the use of the triangle 3, 4, 5 in
constructing right angles. We have seen (p. 24) that
it was familiar in the East from a very early date, and
that Thales introduced it to the Hellenes, if they did
not know it already. In later writers it is actually
called the “Pythagorean triangle.” Now the Pytha-
gorean proposition par excellence is just that, in a right-
angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse is equal

1 In the fragment referred to above (p. 113, n. 2), Speusippos speaks
of four as the first pyramidal number ; but this is taken from Philolaos, so
we cannot safely ascribe it to Pythagoras.

2 We have ὅροι of a series (ἔκθεσις), then of a proportion, and in later
times of a syllogism. The signs :, ::, and .*. are a survival of the original
use. The term χώρα is often used by the later Pythagoreans, though Attic
usage required χωρίον for a rectangle. The spaces between the γραμμαί
of the adacus and the chess-board were also called χῶραι.

3 In his commentary on Euclid i. 44, Proclus tells us on the authority
of Eudemos that the παραβολή, ἔλλειψις, and ὑπερβολή of χωρία were

Pythagorean inventions. For an account of these and the subsequent
application of the terms in Conic Sections, see Milhaud, Pézlosophes

géomeétres, pp. 81 sqq.

Incom-
mensurability.

116 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to the squares on the other two sides, and the so-
called Pythagorean triangle is the application of its
converse to a particular case. The very name
“hypotenuse” affords strong confirmation of the in-
timate connexion between the two things. It means
literally “the cord stretching over against,” and this is

yi

surely just the rope of the “ harpedonapt. An early
tradition says that Pythagoras sacrificed an ox when
he discovered the proof of this proposition, and indeed
it was the real foundation of scientific mathematics.”
50. One great disappointment, however, awaited
Pythagoras. It follows at once from the Pythagorean
proposition that the square on the diagonal of a square
is double the square on its side, and this ought surely
to be capable of numerical expression. As a matter
of fact, however, there is no square number which can
be divided into two equal square numbers, and so the
problem cannot be solved. In this sense, it is doubtless
true that Pythagoras discovered the incommensurability
of the diagonal and the side of a square, and the proof
mentioned by Aristotle, namely, that, if they were
commensurable, we should have to say that an even
number was equal to an odd number, is distinctly
Pythagorean in character.» However that may be, it

1 The verb ὑποτείνειν is, of course, used intransitively. The explana-
tion suggested in the text seems to me much simpler than that of Max
C. P. Schmidt (Aulturhistorische Bettrage, Heft i. pp.64sqq.). He explains
the hypotenuse as the longest string in a triangular harp ; but my view seems
more in accordance with analogy. So ἡ κάθετος is, litérally, a plumb-line.

2 The statement comes from Eudemos; for it is found in Proclus’s
commentary on Euclid i. 47. Whether historical or not, it is no Neo-
pythagorean fancy. |

3 Arist. dv. Pr. A, 23. 41 a 26, ὅτι ἀσύμμετρος ἡ διάμετρος διὰ τὸ
γίγνεσθαι τὰ περιττὰ toa τοῖς ἀρτίοις συμμέτρου τεθείσης. The proofs.
given at the end of Euclid’s Tenth Book (vol. iii. pp. 408 sqq., Heiberg) turn
on this very point. They are not Euclidean, and may be substantially
Pythagorean. Cf. Milhaud, Phzlosophes géométres, p. 94.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 117

-

is certain that Pythagoras did not care to pursue the
subject any further. He had, as it were, stumbled
on the fact that the square root of two is a surd, but
we know that it was left for Plato’s friends, Theodoros
of Kyrene and Theaitetos, to give a complete theory
of the matter.. The fact is that the discovery of the
Pythagorean proposition, by giving birth to geometry,
_had really superseded the old view of quantity as a
sum of units; but it was not till Plato’s time that the
full consequences of this were seen.” For the present,
the incommensurability of the diagonal and the square
remained, as has been said, a “scandalous exception.”
Our tradition says that Hippasos of Metapontion was
drowned at sea for revealing this skeleton in ‘the
cupboard.®
51. These last considerations show that, while it is pigs ἐν τ

quite safe to attribute the substance of the First Book
of Euclid to Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Books VII.-
IX:, and the “geometrical algebra” of Book II. are
certainly not his. They operate with lines or with
areas instead of with units, and the relations which they
establish therefore hold good whether they are capable
of numerical expression or not. That is doubtless why
arithmetic is not treated in Euclid till after plane
geometry, a complete inversion of the original order.
For the same reason, the doctrine of proportion which
we find in Euclid cannot be Pythagorean, and is

1 Plato, Zheaet. 147 ἃ 3 sqq.

2 How novel these consequences were, is shown by the fact that in Zaws,
819 ἃ 5, the Athenian Stranger says that he had only realised them late
in life.

3 This version of the tradition is mentioned in Iamblichos, V. Pyth. 247,
and looks older than the other, which we shall come to later (§ 148).
. Hippasos is the exfant terrible of Pythagoreanism, and the traditions about
him are full of instruction.

_ Things are
numbers.

118 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

indeed the work of Eudoxos. Yet it is clear that the
early Pythagoreans, and probably Pythagoras himself,
studied proportion in their own way, and that the three
“medieties” in particular go back to the founder,
especially as the most complicated of them, the
“harmonic,” stands in close relation to his discovery of
the octave. If we take the harmonic proportion
12:8:6,' we find that 12:6 is the octave, 12:8 the
fifth, and 8 : 6 the fourth, and it can hardly be doubted
that it was Pythagoras himself who discovered these
intervals. The stories which have come down to us
about his observing the harmonic intervals in a smithy,
and then weighing the hammers that produced them,
or of his suspending weights corresponding to those of
the hammers to equal. strings, are, indeed, impossible
and absurd ; but it is sheer waste of time to rationalise
them.2. For our purpose their absurdity is their chief
merit. They are not stories which any Greek
mathematician or musician could possibly have in-
vented, but genuine popular tales bearing witness to
the existence of a real tradition that Pythagoras was
the author of this momentous discovery.

52. It was this too, no doubt, that led Pythagoras to
say all things were numbers. We shall see that, at a
later date, the Pythagoreans identified these numbers
with geometrical figures; but the mere fact that they

1 Plato (772m. 36 a 3) defines the harmonic mean as τὴν . . . ταὐτῷ μέρει
τῶν ἄκρων αὐτῶν ὑπερέχουσαν καὶ ὑπερεχομένην. The harmonic mean of
12 and 6 is therefore 8; for 8=12—42=6+ 8.

2 For these stories and a criticism of them, see Max C. P. Schmidt,
Kulturhistorische Beitrige, i. pp. 78 sqq. The smith’s hammers belong
to the region of J/archen, and it is not true either that the notes would
be determined by the weight of the hammers, or that, if they were,

the weights hung to equal strings would produce the notes. These
inaccuracies were pointed out by Montucla (Martin, Etudes sur le Timée,

i. p. 391).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION [19

called them “numbers,” when taken in connexion with
what we are told about the method of Eurytos, is
sufficient to show this was not the original sense of
the doctrine. It is enough to suppose that Pythagoras
reasoned somewhat as follows. If musical sounds can
be reduced to numbers, why should not everything
else? There are many likenesses to number in things,
and it may well be that a lucky experiment, like that
by which the octave was discovered, will reveal their
true numerical nature. The Neopythagorean writers,
going back in this as in other matters to the earliest
tradition of the school, indulge their fancy in tracing
out analogies between things and numbers in endless
variety; but we are fortunately dispensed from
following them in these vagaries. Aristotle tells us
distinctly that the Pythagoreans explained only a
few things by means of numbers,’ which means that
Pythagoras himself left no developed doctrine on the sub-
ject, while the Pythagoreans of the fifth century did not
care to add anything of the sort to the school tradition.
᾿ς Aristotle does imply, however, that, according to them
the “right time” (καιρός) was seven, justice was four,
and marriage three. These identifications, with a few
others like them, we may safely refer to Pythagoras or
his immediate successors; but we must not attach
much importance to them. They are mere sports of
the analogical fancy. If we wish to understand the
cosmology of Pythagoras, we must start, not from
them, but from any statements we can find that
present points of contact with the teaching of the

1 Arist. AZet. M, 4. 1078 Ὁ 21 (R. P. 78); Zeller, p. 390, n. 2. The
Theologumena Arithmetica, wrongly attributed to Nikomachos of Gerasa,
is full of fanciful doctrine on this subject (R. P. 78 a). Alexander 7 Met.

p. 38, 8, gives a few definitions which may be old (R. P. 78 c).

Cosmology.

120 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Milesian school. These, we may fairly infer, belong
to the system in its most primitive form.

53. Now the most striking statement of this kind is
one of Aristotle’s. The Pythagoreans held, he tells us,
that there was “ boundless breath ” outside the heavens,
and that it was inhaled by the world. In substance,
this is the doctrine of Anaximenes, and it becomes
practically certain that it was that of Pythagoras,
when we find that Xenophanes denied it.2 We may
infer, then, that the further development of the idea is
also due to Pythagoras himself. We are told that, after
the first unit had been formed—however that may
have taken place—the nearest part of the Boundless
was first drawn in and limited ;* and further, that it is
just the Boundless thus inhaled that keeps the units

separate from each other.* It represents the interval

.between them. This is a very primitive way of

\describing the nature of discrete quantity.

i In the passages of Aristotle just referred to, the
Boundless is also spoken of as the void or empty.
This identification of air and the void is a confusion
which we have already met with in Anaximenes, and
it need not surprise us to find it here too. We find

1 Arist. Phys. A, 6. 213 Ὁ 22 (R. P. 75).

2 Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 103 c). It is true that Diogenes is here drawing
from a biographical rather than a doxographical source (Dox. p. 168), but
this touch can hardly be an invention.

3 Arist. Met. M, 3. 1091 a 13 (R. P. 74).

* Arist. Phys. A, 6. 213 Ὁ 23 (R. P. 75 a). The words διορίζει τὰς
φύσεις have caused unnecessary difficulty, because they have been supposed
to attribute the function of limiting to the ἄπειρον. Aristotle makes it quite
clear that his meaning is that stated in the text. Cf. especially the words
χωρισμοῦ τινος τῶν ἐφεξῆς Kal διορίσεως. The term διωρισμένον is the
proper antithesis to συνεχές. In his work on the Pythagorean philosophy,
Aristotle used instead the phrase διορίζει ras χώρας (Stob. i. p. 156, 8;
R. P. 75), which is also quite intelligible if we remember what the Pytha-
goreans meant by χώρα (cf. p. 115, ἢ. 2).

5 Cf. Arist. Phys. A, 6. 213 ἃ 27, of δ᾽ ἄνθρωποι. .. φασὶν ἐν ᾧ ὅλως

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 121

also, as we might expect, distinct traces of the other
confusion, that of air and vapour. It seems certain,
in fact, that Pythagoras identified the Limit with fire,
and the Boundless with darkness. We are told by
Aristotle that Hippasos made Fire the first principle,’
and we shall see that Parmenides, in discussing the
opinions of his contemporaries, attributes to them the
view that there were two primary “forms,” Fire and
Night.2. We also find that Light and Darkness appear
in the Pythagorean table of opposites under the heads
of the Limit and the Unlimited respectively. The
identification of breath with darkness here implied is a
strong proof of the primitive character of the doctrine ;
for in the sixth century darkness was supposed to be a
sort of vapour, while in the fifth, its true nature was
well known. Plato, with his usual historical tact,
makes the Pythagorean Timaios describe mist and
_ darkness as condensed air. We must think, then, of
a “field” of darkness or breath marked out by luminous
units, an imagination which the starry heavens would
naturally suggest, It is even probable that we should
ascribe to Pythagoras the Milesian view of a plurality
of worlds, though it would not have been natural for
him to speak of an infinite number. We know, at
least, that Petron, one of the early Pythagoreans, said ἘΞ
there were just a hundred and eighty-three worlds
arranged in a triangle;> and Plato makes Timaios

μηδέν ἐστι, τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι κενόν, διὸ τὸ πλῆρες ἀέρος κενὸν εἶναι; de Part, An. Β,
10. 656 Ὁ 15, τὸ γὰρ κενὸν καλούμενον ἀέρος πλῆρές ἐστι ; de An. Β, 10. 419
b 34, δοκεῖ γὰρ εἶναι κενὸν ὁ ἀήρ.

1 Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 ἃ 7 (ΚΕ. P. 56 ο).

2 See Chap. IV. 8 91.

3 Arist. Met. A, 5. 986 ἃ 25 (R. P. 66).

4 Plato, Zim. 58 ἃ 2.

5 This is quoted by Plutarch, de def. orac. 422 Ὁ, ἃ, from Phanias of
Eresos, who gave it on the authority of Hippys of Rhegion. If we may

The heavenly
20d ies.

122 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

admit, when laying down that there is only one world,
that something might be urged in favour of the view
that there are five, as there are five regular solids.’

54. Anaximander had regarded the heavenly bodies
” filled with fire which escapes
through certain openings (§ 19), and there is evidence
that Pythagoras adopted the same view.” We have
seen that Anaximander only assumed the existence of
three such wheels, and held that the wheel of the sun
was the lowest. It is extremely probable that
Pythagoras identified the intervals between these rings
with the three musical intervals which he had
discovered, the fourth, the fifth, and the octave. That
would be the most natural beginning for the later
doctrine of the “harmony of the spheres,” though that
expression would be doubly misleading if applied to

as wheels of “air

any theory we can properly ascribe to Pythagoras
himself. The word ἁρμονία does not mean harmony,
and the “spheres” are an anachronism. We are still
at the stage when wheels or rings were considered
sufficient to account for the motions of the heavenly
bodies. It is also to be observed that sun, moon,
planets, and fixed stars must all be regarded as moving

in the same direction from east to west. Pythagoras” ,

certainly did not ascribe to the planets an orbital motion
of their own from west toeast. The old idea was rather
that they were left behind more or less every day. As
compared with the fixed stars, Saturn is left behind
least of all, and the Moon most; so, instead of saying

follow Wilamowitz (Hermes, xix. p. 444) in supposing that this really
means Hippasos of Metapontion (and it was in Rhegion that the
Pythagoreans took refuge), this is a very valuable piece of evidence.

1 Plato, Zim. 55 c 7 sqq.

2 This will be found in Chap. IV. § 93.

—- ΠΥ ΩΝ

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 123

that the Moon took a shorter time than Saturn to
complete its path through the signs of the Zodiac, men
said Saturn travelled quicker than the Moon, because
it more nearly succeeds in keeping up with the signs.
Instead of holding that Saturn takes thirty years to
complete its revolution, they said it took the fixed stars
thirty years to pass Saturn, and only twenty-nine days
and a half to pass the Moon. This is one of the
most important points to bear in mind regarding the
planetary systems of the Greeks, and we shall return
to it again.

The account just given of the views of Pythagoras
is, no doubt, conjectural and incomplete. We have
simply assigned to him those portions of the Pythagorean
system which appear to be the oldest, and it has not
even been possible at this stage to cite fully the
evidence on which our discussion is based. It will
only appear in its true light when we have examined
the second part of the poem of Parmenides and the
system of the later Pythagoreans.2_ For reasons which
will then be apparent, I do not venture to ascribe to
Pythagoras himself the theory of the earth’s revolution
round the central fire. It seems safest to suppose
that he still adhered to the geocentric hypothesis of
Anaximander. In spite of this, however, it will be
clear that he opened a new period in the development
of Greek science, and it was certainly to his school that
its greatest discoveries were directly or indirectly due.

1 For a clear statement of this view (which was still that of
Demokritos), see Lucretius, v. 621 sqq. The view that the planets had
an orbital motion from west to east is attributed by Aetios, ii. 16, 3, to
Alkmaion (§ 96), which certainly implies that Pythagoras did not hold it.
As we shall see (§ 152), it is far from clear that any of the Pythagoreans
did. It seems rather to be Plato’s discovery.

2 See Chap. IV. §§ 92-93, and Chap. VII. 88 150-152.

Life.

124 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

When Plato deliberately attributes some of his own
most important discoveries to the Pythagoreans, he
was acknowledging in a characteristic way the debt he
owed them.

Il. XENOPHANES OF KOLOPHON

55. We have seen how Pythagoras identified himself
with the religious movement of his time ; we have now
to consider a very different manifestation of the reaction
against that view of the gods which the poets had
made familiar to every one. Xenophanes denied the
anthropomorphic gods altogether, but was quite
unaffected by the revival of more primitive ideas that
was going on all round him. We still have a fragment
of an elegy in which he ridiculed Pythagoras and the
doctrine of transmigration. “Once, they say, he was
passing by when a dog was being ill-treated. ‘Stop!’
he said, ‘don’t hit it! It is the soul of a friend! I
knew it when I heard its voice””’ We are also told
that he opposed the views of Thales and Pythagoras,
and attacked Epimenides, which is likely enough,
though no fragments of the kind have come down to
us.” His chief importance lies in the fact that he was
the author of the quarrel between philosophy and
poetry which culminated in Plato’s Republic. |

It is not easy to determine the date of Xenophanes.
Timaios said he was a contemporary of Hieron
and Epicharmos, and he certainly seems to have

1 See fr. 7 (=18 Karst.), af. Diog. viii. 36 (R. P. 88).

2 Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97). We know that Xenophanes referred to the
prediction of an eclipse by Thales (Chap. I. p. 41, n. 1). We shall see that
his own view of the sun was hardly consistent with the possibility of such

a prediction, so it may have been in connexion with this that he opposed
him.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 125

played a part in the anecdotical romance of Hieron’s
court which amused the Greeks of the fourth century
much as that of Croesus and the Séven Wise Men
amused those of the fifth’ As Hieron reigned
from 478 to 467 B.c., that would make it impossible
to date the birth of Xenophanes much earlier than 570
B.C., even if we suppose him to have lived till the
age of a hundred. On the other hand, both Sextus
and Clement say that Apollodoros gave Ol. XL. (620-
616 B.C.) as the date of his birth, and the former adds
that his days were prolonged till the time of Dareios
and Cyrus? Again, Diogenes, whose information
on such matters mostly comes from Apollodoros,
says that he flourished in Ol. LX. (540-537 B.c.), and
Diels holds that Apollodoros really said so* How-
ever that may be, it is evident that the date 540 B.C.
is based on the assumption that he went to Elea in
the year of its foundation, and is, therefore, a mere
combination.*

1 Timaios af. Clem. Strom. i. p. 533 (Ε. P. 95). There is only one
anecdote which actually represents Xenophanes in conversation with
Hieron (Plut. Reg. apophth. 175 6), but it is natural to understand Arist.
Met. T, 5. 1010 a 4 45 an allusion to a remark made by Epicharmos to
him. Aristotle has more than one anecdote about Xenophanes, and it
seems most likely that he derived them from the romance of which
Xenophon’s Heron is an echo.

2 Clem., Joc. cit.; Sext. Math. i. 257. The mention of Cyrus is confirmed
by Hipp. Ref. i. 94. Diels thinks that Dareios was mentioned first for
metrical reasons ; but no one has satisfactorily explained why Cyrus should
be mentioned at all, unless the early date was intended. On the whole
subject, see Jacoby, pp. 204 sqq., who is certainly wrong in supposing that
ἄχρι τῶν Δαρείου καὶ Κύρου χρόνων can mean “during the times of
Dareios and Cyrus.”

> Rh. Mus. xxxi. p. 22. He assumes an early corruption of N into M.
As Apollodoros gave the Athenian archon, and not the Olympiad, we
might with more probability suppose a confusion due to two archons
having the same name.

4 As Elea was founded by the Phokaians six years after they left
Phokaia (Herod. i. 164 sqq.) its date is just 540-39 B.c. Cf. the way in
which Apollodoros dated Empedokles by the era of Thourioi (§ 98).

126 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

What we do know for certain is that Xenophanes
had led a wandering life from the age of twenty-five,
and that he was still alive and making poetry at the
age of ninety-two. He says himself (fr. 8 = 24 Karst.;
R. P. 97) :-—

There are by this time threescore years and seven that
have tossed my careworn soul! up and down the land of
Hellas ; and there were then five-and-twenty years from my
birth, if I can say aught truly about these matters.

It is tempting to suppose that in this passage
Xenophanes was referring to the conquest of Ionia by
Harpagos, and that he is, in fact, answering the ques-
tion asked in another poem ? (fr..22 =17 Karst.; R. P.

95 8):-

This is the sort of thing we should say by the fireside in
the winter-time, as we lie on soft couches after a good
meal, drinking sweet wine and crunching chickpeas: “Οἵ
what country are you, and how old are you, good sir? And
how old were you when the Mede appeared ?”

We cannot, however, be sure of this, and we must
-be content with what is, after all, for our purpose the
main fact, namely, that he refers to Pythagoras in the
past tense, and is in turn so referred to by Herakleitos.®

Theophrastos said that Xenophanes had “heard”
Anaximander,’ and we shall see that he was certainly
acquainted with the Ionian cosmology. When driven

1 Bergk (Litteraturgesch. ii. p. 418, n. 23) took φροντίς here to mean
the literary work of Xenophanes, but it is surely an anachronism to suppose
that at this date it could be used like the Latin cura.

2 It was certainly another poem; for it is in hexameters while the
preceding fragment is in elegiacs.

3 Xenophanes, fr. 7 (above, p. 124, ἢ. 1); Herakleitos, frs. 16, 17
(below, p. 147).

4 Diog, ix. 21 (R. P. 96).

—— = = —-

a ———— a Ἔ,η

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 127

from his native city, he lived in Sicily, chiefly, we are
told, at Zankle and Katana.’ Like Archilochos before
him, he unburdened his soul in elegies and satires, which
he recited at the banquets where, we may suppose, the
refugees tried to keep up the usages of good Ionian
society. The statement that he was a rhapsode has
no foundation at all?’ The singer of elegies was no
professional like the rhapsode, but the social equal of
his listeners. In his ninety-second year he was still,
we have seen, leading a wandering life, which is hardly
consistent with the statement that he settled at Elea
and founded a school there, especially if we are to think
of him as spending his last days at Hieron’s court. It
is quite probable that he visited Elea, and it is just
possible that he wrote a poem of two thousand hexa-
meters on the foundation of that city, which was
naturally a subject of interest to all the Ionic émigrés.’
But it is very remarkable that no ancient writer ex-
pressly says that he ever was at Elea, and the only thing
besides the doubtful poem referred to which connects
him with it is a single anecdote of Aristotle’s as to the
answer he gave the Eleates when they asked whether
they should sacrifice to Leukothea and lament her or
not. “If you think her a goddess,” he said, “do not

1 Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 96). The use of the old name Zankle, instead of
the later Messene, points to an early source for this statement—probably
the elegies of Xenophanes himself.

2 Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97) says αὐτὸς ἐρραψῴδει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ, which is a very
different thing. Nothing is said anywhere of his reciting Homer, and the
word ῥαψῳδεῖν is used quite loosely for ‘‘to recite.”” Gomperz’s imaginative
picture(Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 155) has no further support than this single
word. Nor is there any trace of Homeric influence in the fragments.
They are in the usual elegiac style.

3 The statement is justly suspected by Hiller (RA. Aus. xxxiii. p. 529)
to come from Lobon of Argos, who provided the Seven Wise Men,

Epimenides, etc., with stichometric notices, all duly recorded in Diogenes.
Even if true, however, it proves nothing.

Poems.

128 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

lament her ; if not, do not sacrifice to her.” That is
absolutely all, and it is only an apophthegm.’ It
is strange there should be no more if Xenophanes
had really found a home at last in the Phokaian
colony.

56. According to a notice preserved in Diogenes,
Xenophanes wrote in hexameters and also composed
elegies and iambics against Homer and Hesiod.2 No
good authority says anything about his having written
a philosophical poem.’ Simplicius tells us he had never
met with the verses about the earth stretching infinitely
downwards (fr. 28),* and this means that the Academy
possessed no copy of such a poem, which would be very
strange if it had ever existed. Simplicius was able to
find the complete works of much smaller men. Nor does
internal evidence lend any support to the view that he
wrote a philosophical poem. Diels refers about twenty-
eight lines to it, but they would all come in quite
as naturally in his attacks on Homer and Hesiod, as I
have endeavoured to show. It is also significant that a
considerable number of them are derived from com-

1 Arist. Rhez. B, 26. 1400 Ὁ καὶ (R. P. 98a). Anecdotes like this are
really anonymous. Plutarch transfers the story to Egypt (P. Ph. Fr. p. 22,
§ 13), and others tell it of Herakleitos. It is hardly safe to build on such
a foundation.

2 Diog. ix. 18 (R. P. 97). The word ἐπικόπτων is a reminiscence of
Timon, fr. 60; Diels, Zewopdvns ὑπάτυφος ‘Ounpardrys ἐπικόπτης.

3 The oldest reference to a poem Περὶ φύσεως is in the Geneva scholium
on 117. xxi. 196 (quoting fr. 30), and this goes back to Krates of Mallos.
We must remember, however, that such titles are of later date than Xeno-
phanes, and he had been given a place among philosophers long- before
the time of Krates. All we can say, therefore, is that the Pergamene
librarians gave the title Περὶ φύσεως to some poem of Xenophanes.

4 Simpl. de Caelo, p. 522, 7 (R. P. 97 Ὁ). It is true that two of our
fragments (25 and 26) are preserved by Simplicius, but he got them from
Alexander. Probably they were quoted by Theophrastos ; for it is plain
that Alexander had no first-hand knowledge of Xenophanes either. If he
had, he would not have been taken in by AZ.X.G. (See p. 138, n. 4.)

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 129

mentators on Homer.’ It seems probable, then, that
Xenophanes expressed his theological and philosophical
views incidentally in his satires. That would be quite
in the manner of the time, as we can see from the
remains of Epicharmos.

The satires themselves are called Sz//oz by late writers,
and this name may go back to Xenophanes himself.
It is also possible, however, that it originates in the
fact that Timon of Phleious, the “ sillographer” (c. 259
B.C.), put much of his satire upon philosophers into the
mouth of Xenophanes. Only one iambic line has been
preserved, and that is immediately followed by a hexa-
meter (fr. 14=5 Karst.). This suggests that Xeno-
phanes inserted iambic lines among his hexameters in
the manner of the Margites, which would be a very
natural thing for him to do.”

57. I give all the fragments of any importance Thefragments.
according to the text and arrangement of Diels.

ELEGIES

(r)

Now is the floor clean, and the hands and cups of all; one
sets twisted garlands on our heads, another hands us fragrant
Ointment on a salver. The mixing bowls stand ready, full
of gladness, and there is more wine at hand that promises
never to leave us in the lurch, soft and smelling of flowers in
the jars. In the midst the frankincense sends up its holy
smoke, and there is cold water, sweet and clean. Brown
loaves are set before us and a lordly table laden with cheese and
rich honey. The altar in the midst is clustered round with
flowers ; song and revel fill the halls.

1 Three fragments (27, 31, 33) come from the Homeric Allegories, two
(30, 32) are from Homeric scholia.
2 Cf, Wilamowitz, Progr. Gryphiswald. 1880.

130 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

But first it is meet that men should hymn the god with
joyful song, with holy tales and pure words ; then after libation
and prayer made that we may have strength to do right—for
that is in truth the better way—no sin is it to drink as much
as a man can take and get home without an attendant, so he
be not stricken in years. And above all men is he to be
praised who after drinking gives goodly proof of himself in the
trial of skill, as memory and voice will serve him. Let him not
sing of Titans and Giants—those fictions of the men of old—
nor of turbulent civil broils in which is no good thing at all;
but ever give heedful reverence to the gods.

(2)

What if a man win victory in swiftness of foot, or in the
pentathion, at Olympia, where is the precinct of Zeus by Pisa’s
springs, or in wrestling,—what if by cruel boxing or that
fearful sport men call pankration he become mote glorious in
the citizens’ eyes, and win a place of honour in the sight of all
at the games, his food at the public cost from the State, and
a gift to be an heirloom for him,—what if he conquer in the
chariot-race,—he will not deserve all this for his portion so
much asI do. Far better is our art than the strength of men
and of horses! These are but thoughtless judgments, nor is it
fitting to set strength before our art. Even if there arise a
mighty boxer among a people, or one great in the pentathlon
or at wrestling, or one excelling in swiftness of foot—and that
stands in honour before all tasks of men at the games—the
city would be none the better governed for that. It is but
little joy a city gets of it if a man conquer at the games by
Pisa’s banks; it is not this that makes fat the store-houses of
a city.

(3) -

They learnt dainty and unprofitable ways from the Lydians,
so long as they were free from hateful tyranny; they went to
the market-place with cloaks of purple dye, not less than a
thousand of them all told, vainglorious and proud of their

comely tresses, reeking with fragrance from cunning salves.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 131

SATIRES

(to)

‘Since all at first have learnt according to Homer. .

(tr)

Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things

that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and >

adulteries and deceivings of one another. R. P. 99.

(12)
They have uttered many, many lawless deeds of the gods,
stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another.
R. P. 7.

(14)

But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are,:

and have clothes! like theirs, and voice and form. R. P. roo.

(15)

Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could
paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do,
horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen
like oxen, and make their bodies in the as of their several
kinds, R. P. 22.

(16)
The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed ; the
Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair. R. P. roo ὃ.

(18)
The gods have not revealed all things to men from the
beginning, but by seeking they find in time what is better.
R. P. 104 b.

1 I formerly, with Zeller, preferred Theodoret’s reading αἴσθησιν, but
both Clement and Eusebios have ἐσθῆτα, and Theodoret is entirely
dependent on them.

132 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY
(23)

One god, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form
like unto mortals nor in thought. ... R. P. 100.

(24)
He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. R. P.
102,

(25)
But without toil he swayeth all things by the thought of his
mind. R. P. 108 b.

(26)
And he abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at
all; nor doth it befit him to go about now hither now thither.
RP. 25008.

(27)

All things come from the earth, and in earth all things end.
R. P. 103 a.

(28)
This limit of the earth above is seen at our feet in contact with
the air ;! below it reaches down without a limit. R. P. 103.

(29)
All things are earth and water that come into being and
grow. R. P. 103.

| (30)

The sea is the source of water and the source of wind ; for
neither in the clouds (would there be any blasts of wind
blowing forth) from within without the mighty sea, nor rivers’
streams nor rain-water from the sky. The mighty sea is father
of clouds and of winds and of rivers.2 R. P. 103.

1 Reading ἠέρι for καὶ pet with Diels.

2 This fragment has been recovered in its entirety from the Geneva
scholia on Homer (see Arch. iv. p. 652). The words in brackets are added
by Diels. See also Praechter, ‘‘ Zu Xenophanes” (PAz/o/, xviii. p. 308).

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 133
(31)

The sun swinging over! the earth and warming it... .

(32)
She that they call Iris is a cloud likewise, purple, scarlet
and green to behold. R. P. 103.

(33)
For we all are born of earth and water. R. P. 7d.

(34)

There never was nor will be a man who has certain know-
ledge about the gods and about all the things I speak of.
Even if he should chance to say the complete truth, yet he
himself knows not that it is so, But all may have their fancy. -
R. P. 104.

(35)

Let these be taken as fancies? something like the truth.
RK. P. 104 a.

(36)

All of them 8 that are visible for mortals to behold.
(37)

And in some caves water drips. . . .
(38)

If god had not made brown honey, men would think figs
far sweeter than they do.

58. The intention of one of these fragments (fr. 32) The heavenly
is perfectly clear. “Iris too” is a cloud, and we may 2
_infer that the same thing had just been said of the sun,

1 The word is ὑπεριέμενος. This is quoted from the A//egories as an
explanation of the name Hyperion, and doubtless Xenophanes so meant it.

5. Reading δεδοξάσθω with Wilamowitz.

® As Diels suggests, this probably refers to the stars, which Xenophanes
held to be clouds.

134 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

moon, and stars ; for the doxographers tell us that these
were all explained as “clouds ignited by motion.”* To
the same context clearly belongs the explanation of the
St. Elmo’s fire which Aetios has preserved. “ The
things like stars which appear on ships,” we are told,
“which some call the Dioskouroi, are little clouds made

2 In the doxographers this

luminous by motion.
-explanation is repeated with trifling variations under
the head of moon, stars, comets, lightning, shooting
stars, and so forth, which gives the appearance of a
systematic cosmology.* But the system is due to the
arrangement of the work of Theophrastos, and not to
Xenophanes ; for it is obvious that a very few hexa-
meters added to those we possess would amply account
for the whole doxography.

What we hear of the sun presents some difficulties.
We are told, on the one hand, that it too was an ignited
cloud; but this can hardly be right. . The evaporation
of the sea from which clouds arise is distinctly said to
be due to the sun’s heat. Theophrastos stated that the
sun, according to Xenophanes, was a collection of sparks
from the moist exhalation; but even this leaves the
exhalation itself unexplained.* That, however, matters
little, if the chief aim of Xenophanes was to discredit
the anthropomorphic gods, rather than to give a

1 Cf. Diels ad loc. (P. Ph. Fr. p. 44), ‘fut Sol et cetera astra, quae
cum in nebulas evanescerent, deorum simul opinio casura erat.” Cf. Arch.
X. Ρ. 533:

2 Aet. ii. 18, 1 (Dox. p. 347), Ξενοφάνης τοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν πλοίων φαινομένους
οἷον ἀστέρας, ods καὶ Διοσκούρους καλοῦσί τινες, νεφέλια εἷναι κατὰ τὴν ποιὰν
κίνησιν παραλάμποντα. :

35 The passages from Aetios are collected in P. Ph. Fr. pp. 32 544.
(Vors. p. 42).

4 Aet. ii. 20, 3 (Dox. p. 348), ΞΞενοφάνης ἐκ νεφῶν πεπυρωμένων εἶναι
τὸν ἥλιον. Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς γέγραφεν ἐκ πυριδίων μὲν τῶν
συναθροιζομένων ἐκ τῆς ὑγρᾶς ἀναθυμιάσεως, συναθροιζόντων δὲ τὸν ἥλιον.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 135

scientific theory of the heavenly bodies. The important
thing is that Helios too is a temporary phenomenon.
The sun does not go round the earth, as Anaxi-
mander taught, but straight on, and the appearance of
a circular path is solely due to its increasing distance.
So it is not the same sun that rises next morning, but
a new one altogether ; while the old one “tumbles into
a hole” when it comes to certain uninhabited regions
of the earth. Besides that, there are many suns and
moons, one of each for every region of the earth.’ It
is obvious that things of that kind cannot be gods.

The vigorous expression “tumbling into a hole”?
seems clearly to come from the verses of Xenophanes
himself, and there are others of a similar kind, which
we must suppose were quoted by Theophrastos, The
stars go out in the daytime, but glow again at night
“like charcoal embers.’* The sun is of some use in
producing the world and the living creatures in it, but
the moon “does no work in the boat.”* Such ex-
pressions can only be meant to make the heavenly
bodies appear ridiculous, and it will therefore be well to
ask whether the other supposed cosmological fragments
can be interpreted on the same principle.

1 Aet. ii. 24, 9 (Dox. p. 355), πολλοὺς εἶναι ἡλίους καὶ σελήνας κατὰ
κλίματα τῆς γῆς Kal ἀποτομὰς καὶ ζώνας, κατὰ δέ τινα καιρὸν ἐμπίπτειν τὸν
δίσκον εἴς τινα ἀποτομὴν τῆς γῆς οὐκ οἰκουμένην ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν καὶ οὕτως ὥσπερ
κενεμβατοῦντα ἔκλειψιν ὑποφαίνειν: ὁ δ᾽ αὐτὸς τὸν ἥλιον εἰς ἄπειρον μὲν
προιέναι, δοκεῖν δὲ κυκλεῖσθαι διὰ τὴν ἀπόστασιν. It is clear that in this
notice ἔκλειψιν has been erroneously substituted for δύσιν, as it has also in
Aet. ii. 24, 4 (Dox. p. 354).

3 That this is the meaning of ὥσπερ κενεμβατοῦντα appears sufficiently
from the passages referred to in Liddell and Scott.

3 Aet. ii. 13, 14 (Dox. p. 343), ἀναζωπυρεῖν νύκτωρ καθάπερ rods ἄνθρακας.

4 Aet. ii. 30, 8 (Dox. p. 362), τὸν μὲν ἥλιον χρήσιμον εἶναι πρὸς τὴν
τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ ζῴων γένεσίν τε καὶ διοίκησιν, τὴν δὲ
σελήνην παρέλκειν. The verb παρέλκειν means “to cork.” Cf. Aristo-
phanes, Pax, 1306.

1 36 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Earthand 50. In fr. 29 Xenophanes says that “all things are
aa earth-and water,” and Hippolytos has preserved the
account given by Theophrastos of the context in which

this occurred. It was as follows :—

Xenophanes said that a mixture of the earth with the sea
is taking place, and that it is being gradually dissolved by the
moisture. He says that he has the following proofs of this.
Shells are found in midland districts and on hills, and he says
that in the quarries at Syracuse has been found the imprint of
a fish and of seaweed, at Paros the form of an anchovy in the
depth of the stone, and at Malta flat impressions of all marine
animals. These, he says, were produced when all things were -
formerly mud, and the outlines were dried in the mud, All
human beings are destroyed when the earth has been carried
down into the sea and turned to mud. This change takes
place for all the worlds.—Hipp. Ref i. 14 (R.P. 103 a).

This is, of course, the theory of Anaximander, and
we may perhaps credit him rather than Xenophanes
with the observations of fossils." Most remarkable of
all, however, is the statement that this change applies to
“all the worlds.” It really seems impossible to doubt
that Theophrastos attributed a belief in “innumerable
worlds” to Xenophanes. As we have seen already,

" Aetios includes him in his list of those who held this
doctrine, and Diogenes ascribes it to him also? In
this place, Hippolytos seems to take it for granted.

1 There is an interesting note on these in Gomperz’s Greek Thinkers
(Eng. trans. i. p. 551). -I have translated his conjecture φυκῶν instead of
the MS. φωκῶν, as this is said to involve a paleontological impossibility,
and impressions of fucoids are found, not indeed in the quarries of Syracuse,
but near them. It is said also that there are no fossils in Paros, so the
anchovy must have been an imaginary one. :

2 Aet. ii. 1, 2 (Dox, p. 327); Diog. ix. 19 (R. P. 1028)» It is true,
of course, that this passage of Diogenes comes from the biographical
compendium (Dox. p. 168); but, for all that, it is a serious matter to deny

the Theophrastean origin of a statement found in Aetios, Hippolytos, and
Diogenes.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 137

We shall also find, however, that in another connexion
he said the World or God was one. If our interpreta-
tion of him is correct, there is no difficulty here. The
main point is that, so far from being a primeval goddess,
and “a sure seat for all things ever,’ Gaia too is a

. passing appearance. That belongs to the attack upon
Hesiod, and, if in this connexion Xenophanes spoke,

_ with Anaximander, of “ innumerable worlds,” while
elsewhere he said that God or the World was one,
that is probably connected with a still better attested
contradiction which we have now to examine.

! 60. Aristotle tried without success to discover from Finite or
the poems of Xenophanes whether he regarded the rea
world as finite or infinite. “He made no clear pro-
nouncement on the subject,” he tells us. Theophrastos,
on the other hand, decided that he regarded it as
spherical and finite because he said it was “ equal every
way.” This, however, leads to very serious difficulties.
We have seen already that Xenophanes said the sun
went right on to infinity, and this agrees with his view
of the earth as an infinitely extended plain. Still
more difficult to reconcile with the idea of a spherical
and finite world is the statement of fr. 28 that, while
the earth has an upper limit which we see, it has no
limit below. This is attested by Aristotle, who speaks
of the earth being “infinitely rooted,” and adds that
Empedokles criticised Xenophanes. for holding this

1 Arist. Met. A, 5. 986 Ὁ 23 (R. P. 101), οὐδὲν διεσαφήνισεν.

5 This is given as an inference by Simpl. Phys. p. 23, 18 (R. P. 108 b),
διὰ τὸ πανταχόθεν ὅμοιον. It does not merely come from J/X%.G.
(R. P. 108), πάντῃ δ᾽ ὅμοιον ὄντα σφαιροειδῆ εἶναι. Hippolytos has it
too (ef. i. 14; R. P. 102 a), so it goes back to Theophrastos. Timon
of Phleious understood Xenophanes in the same way; for he makes
him call the One ἴσον ἁπάντῃ (fr. 60, Diels = 40 Wachsm.; R. P.
102 a). .

138 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

view. It further appears from the fragment of
Empedokles quoted by Aristotle that Xenophanes said

the vast Air extended infinitely upwards. We are
therefore bound to try to find room for an _ infinite
earth and an infinite air in a spherical and finite world !
That comes of trying to find science in satire. If, on
the other hand, we regard these statements from the
same point of view as those about the heavenly bodies,
we shall at once see what they most probably mean.
‘The story of Ouranos and Gaia was always the chief
\\scandal of the 7heogony, and the infinite air gets rid of

Ouranos altogether. As to the earth stretching
infinitely downwards, that gets rid of Tartaros, which
Homer described as situated at the bottommost limit
of earth and sea, as far beneath Hades as heaven is
above the earth. This is pure conjecture, of course ;
but, if it is even possible, we are entitled to disbelieve
that such startling contradictions occurred in a
cosmological poem. :

A more subtle ae SRE of the difficulty
commended itself to the late Peripatetic who wrote an
account of the Eleatic school, part of which is still
extant in the Aristotelian corpus, and is generally
known now as the treatise on MJelissos, Xenophanes, and
Gorgias* He said that Xenophanes declared the

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 294 a 21 (R. P. 103 b).

2 I take δαψιλός as an attribute and ἀπείρονα as predicate to both
subjects.

8 Ji, viii. 13-16, 478-481, especially the words’ οὐδ᾽ εἴ κε τὰ velara
πείραθ᾽ ἵκηαι | γαίης καὶ πόντοιο x.t.d. iad viii. must have seemed a
particularly bad book to Xenophanes. i

4 In Bekker’s edition this treatise bears the title Περὶ Ξενοφάνους,
περὶ Ζήνωνος, περὶ T'opylov, but the best MS. gives as the titles of its
three sections: (1) Περὶ Ζήνωνος, (2) Περὶ Ξενοφάνους, (3) Περὶ Γοργίου.
The first section, however, plainly refers to Melissos, so the whole treatise
is now entitled De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia (M.X.G.). It has been
edited by Apelt in the Teubner Series, and more recently by Diels (Ad2.

Ι

SCIENCE AND RELIGION 139

world to be neither finite nor infinite, and he composed
a series of arguments in support of this thesis, to
which he added another like it, namely, that the world
is neither in motion nor at rest. This has introduced
endless confusion into our sources. Alexander used
this treatise as well as the great work of Theophrastos,
and Simplicius supposed the quotations from it to be
from Theophrastos too. Having no copy of the poems
he was completely baffled, and until recently all accounts
of Xenophanes were vitiated by the same confusion.
It may even be suggested that, but for this, we
should have heard very little of the “philosophy of
Xenophanes,” a way of speaking which is in the main
a survival from the days before this scholastic exercise
was recognised as having no authority.

61. In the passage of the Metaphysics just referred rinigicc #
to, Aristotle speaks of Xenophanes as “the first
partisan of the One,”? and the context shows that
he means to suggest he was the first of the Eleatics.
We have seen already that the certain facts of his life
make it very unlikely that he settled at Elea and
founded a school there, and it is probable that, as
usual in such cases, Aristotle is simply reproducing

der k. Preuss. Akad. 1900), who has also given the section dealing with
Xenophanes in P. Pk. Fr. pp. 24-29 (Vors. pp. 36 sqq.). He has now
withdrawn the view maintained in Dox. p. 108 that the work belongs to
the third century B.c., and holds that it was a Peripatetico eclectico (?.¢.
sceptica, platonica, stoica admiscente) circa Christi natalem conscriptum.
If that is so, there is no reason to doubt, as I formerly did, that the
second section is really meant to deal with Xenophanes. The writer would
have no first-hand knowledge of his poems, and the order in which the
philosophers are discussed is that of the passage in the Metaphysics which
suggested the whole thing. It is possible that a section on Parmenides
preceded what we now have.

1 Met. A, 5. 986 Ὁ 21 (R. P. 101), πρῶτος τούτων ἑνίσας. The verb évifew
occurs nowhere else, but is plainly formed on the analogy of μηδίζειν,
φιλιππίζειν, and the like. It is not likely that it means ‘‘to unify.
Aristotle could easily have said évécas if he had meant that.

140 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

certain statements of Plato. At any rate, Plato had
spoken of the Eleatics as the “partisans of the
Whole,”* and he had also spoken of the school as
“starting with Xenophanes and even earlier.” The
last words, however, show clearly enough what he
meant. Just as he called the Herakleiteans “followers
of Homer and still more ancient teachers,” ὃ so_he
attached the Eleatic school to Xenophanes and still
earlier authorities. We have seen in other instances
how these playful and ironical remarks of Plato were
taken seriously by his successors, and we need not let
this fresh instance of the same thing influence our
general view of Xenophanes unduly.

Aristotle goes on to tell us that Xenophanes,
“referring to the whole world,’ said the One was god.”
This clearly alludes to frs. 23-26, where all human
attributes are denied of a god who is said to be one
and “the greatest among gods and men.” It may be
added that these verses gain very much in point if we
may think of them as closely connected with frs.

1 Tht. 181 a 6, τοῦ ὅλου στασιῶται. The noun στασιώτης has no other
meaning than “‘ partisan.”’ There is no verb στασιοῦν ‘‘ to make stationary,”
and such a formation would be against all analogy. The derivation
στασιώτας. .. ἀπὸ τῆς στάσεως appears first in Sext. J/ath. x. 46, from
which passage we may infer that Aristotle used the word, not that he
gave the derivation.

2 Soph. 242 ἃ 5(R. P. 101 b). If the passage implies that Xenophanes .
settled at Elea, it equally implies this of his predecessors. But Elea was
not founded till Xenophanes was in the prime of life.

3 Tht. 179 e 3, τῶν Ἡρακλειτείων ἤ, ὥσπερ σὺ λέγεις, Ομηρείων καὶ ἔτι
παλαιοτέρων. In this passage, Homer stands to the Herakleiteans in
exactly the same relation as Xenophanes does to the Eleatics in the
Sophist.

4 Met. 981 Ὁ 24. The words cannot mean ‘‘gazing up at the whole
heavens,” or anything of that sort. They are taken as I take them by
Bonitz (tm Hinblicke auf den ganzen Himmel) and Zeller (im Hinblick auf
das Weltganze). The word ἀποβλέπειν had become much too colourless
to bear the other meaning, and οὐρανός, as we know, means what was later
called κόσμος.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION [41

11-16, instead of referring the one set of verses to the
Satires and the other to a cosmological poem. It was
probably in the same context that Xenophanes called
the world or god “equal every way”! and denied that
it breathed:? The statement that. there is fo master-
ship among the gods® also goes very well with fr. 26.
A god has no wants, nor is it fitting for one god to be
the servant of others, like Iris.and Hermes in Homer.
62. That this “god” is just the world, Aristotle Monotheism

tells us, and the use of the word θεός is quite in men
accordance with Anaximander’s. Xenophanes regarded
it as sentient, though without any special organs of
sense, and it sways all things by the thought of its
mind. He also calls it “one god,” and, if that is
monotheism, then Xenophanes was a _ monotheist,
though this is surely not how the word is generally
understood. The fact is that the expression “one
god” wakens all sorts of associations. in our mind
which did not exist at all for the Greeks of this time.
His contemporaries would have been more likely to
call Xenophanes an atheist than anything else. As
Eduard Meyer excellently says : “ In Greece the question
of one god or gods many hardly plays any part.
Whether the divine power is thought of as a unity
or a plurality, is irrelevant in comparison with the
question whether it exists at all, and how its nature
and its relation to the world is to be understood.” *

1 See above, p. 137, n. 2.
2 Diog. ix: 19 (R. P. 103 c), ὅλον δ᾽ ὁρᾶν καὶ ὅλον ἀκούειν, μὴ μέντοι
' ἀναπνεῖν. See above, p. 120, ἢ. 2.

3 [Plut.] Strom. fr. 4, ἀποφαίνεται δὲ καὶ περὶ θεῶν ws οὐδεμιᾶς
ἡγεμονίας ἐν αὐτοῖς οὔσης ob yap ὅσιον δεσπόζεσθαί τινα τῶν θεῶν,
ἐπιδεῖσθαί τε μηδενὸς αὐτῶν μηδένα μηδ᾽ ὅλως, ἀκούειν δὲ καὶ ὁρᾶν καθόλου
καὶ μὴ κατὰ μέρος.

4 Gesch. des Alterth. ii. § 466.

142 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

On the other hand, it is wrong to say with Freuden-
thal that Xenophanes was in any sense a polytheist.'
That he should use the language of polytheism in his
elegies is only what we should expect, and the other
references to “gods” can be best explained as incidental
to his attack on the anthropomorphic gods of Homer
and Hesiod. In one case, Freudenthal has pressed a
proverbial way of speaking too hard.? Least of all
can we admit that Xenophanes allowed the existence
of subordinate or departmental gods; for it was just
the existence of such that he was chiefly concerned
todeny. At the same time, I cannot help thinking that
Freudenthal was more nearly right than Wilamowitz,
who says that Xenophanes “upheld the only real
monotheism that has ever existed upon earth.”* Diels,
I fancy, comes nearer the mark, when he calls it a
“somewhat narrow pantheism.”* But all these views
would have surprised Xenophanes himself about equally.
He was really Goethe’s Weltkind, with prophets to
right and left of him, and he would have smiled if
he had known that one day he was to be regarded
as a theologian.

1 Freudenthal, Dze Theologie des Xenophanes.

2 Xenophanes calls his god ‘‘ greatest among gods and men,” but this is
simply a case of “‘ polar expression,” to which parallels will be found in
Wilamowitz’s note to the Herakiles, v. 1106. Cf. especially the statement
of Herakleitos (fr. 20) that ‘‘no one of gods or men” made the world.

3 Griechische Literatur, p. 38.

4 Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 9.

CHAPTER ΠΡ
HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS

63. HERAKLEITOS of Ephesos, son of Blyson, is said to Life of
have “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504/3-501/0 BC);)
that is to say, just in the middle of the reign of
Dareios, with whom several traditions connected him.®
We shall see that Parmenides was assigned to the same
Olympiad, though for another reason (§ 84). It is more
important, however, for our purpose to notice that, while
Herakleitos refers to Pythagoras and Xenophanes by
name and in the past tense (fr. 16), he is in turn
referred to by Parmenides (fr. 6). These references
are sufficient to mark his proper place in the history
of philosophy. Zeller holds, indeed, that he cannot
have published his work till after 478 B.c, on the
ground that the expulsion of his friend Hermodoros,
alluded to in fr. 114, could not have taken place
before the downfall of Persian rule. ‘If that were
so, it might be hard to see how Parmenides could
have known the views of Herakleitos; but there is
surely no difficulty in supposing that the Ephesians
may have sent one of their foremost citizens into
banishment at a time when they were still paying
1 Diog. ix. 1 (R. P. 29), no doubt from Apollodoros through some inter-

mediate authority. Jacoby, pp. 227 546.
3 Bernays, Die Herakiitischen Briefe, pp. 13 5644.

143

His book.

144 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

tribute to the Great King. The Persians never took
their internal self-government from the Ionian cities,
and the spurious Letters of Herakleitos show the
accepted view was that the expulsion of Hermodoros
took place during the reign of Dareios.’

Sotion said that Herakleitos was a disciple of
Xenophanes,” which is not probable; for Xenophanes
seems to have left Ionia for ever before Herakleitos
was born. More likely he was not a disciple of
any one; but it is clear, at the same time, that he
was acquainted both with the Milesian cosmology
and with the poems of Xenophanes. He _ also
knew something of the theories taught by Pythagoras
(fr. 17).

Of the life of Herakleitos we really know nothing,
except, perhaps, that he belonged to the ancient royal
house and resigned the nominal position of Basileus
in favour of his brother.® The origin of the other
statements bearing on it is quite transparent.*

64. We do not know the title of the work of
Herakleitos °—if, indeed, it had one at all—and it

1 Bernays, of. cit. pp. 20 sqq.

2 Sotion ap. Diog. ix. 5 (R. P. 29 c).

3 Diog. ix. 6 (R. P. 31).

4 See Patin, Heraklits Einheitslehre, pp. 3 sqq. Herakleitos said (fr.
68) that it was death to souls to become water ; and we are told accord-
ingly that he died of dropsy. He said (fr. 114) that the Ephesians should
leave their city to their children, and (fr. 79) that Time was a child play-
ing draughts. We are therefore told that he refused to take any part in
public life, and went to play with the children in the temple of Artemis.
He said (fr. 85) that corpses were more fit to be cast out than dung ; and
we are told that he covered himself with dung when attacked with dropsy.
Lastly, he is said to have argued at great length with his doctors because
of fr. 58. For these tales see Diog. ix. 3-5, and compare the stories about
Empedokles discussed in Chap. V. § 100.

5 The variety of titles enumerated in Diog. ix. 12(R. P. 30 b) seems to
show that none was authentically known. That of ‘‘ Muses” comes from
Plato, Soph. 242 ἃ 7. The others are mere ‘‘ mottoes”’ (Schuster) prefixed

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 145

is not very easy to form a clear idea of its contents.
We are told that it was divided into three discourses:
one dealing with the universe, one political, and one
theological.’ It is not likely that this division is
due to Herakleitos himself; all we can infer from the
statement is that the work fell naturally into these
three parts when the Stoic commentators took their
editions of it in hand.

The style of Herakleitos is proverbially obscure,
and, at a later date, got him the nickname of “the
Dark.”* Now the fragments about the Delphic god
and the Sibyl (frs. 11 and 12) seem to show that
he was quite conscious of writing an oracular style,

and we have to ask why he did so. In the first place,

it was the manner of the time.® The stirring events
of the age, and the influence of the religious revival,
gave something of a prophetic tone to all the leaders
of thought. Pindar and Aischylos have it too. They
all feel that they are in some measure inspired. It is
also the age of | great individualities, who are apt to be
solitary and disdainful. Herakleitos at>least was so.
If men cared to dig for the gold they might find it
(fr. 8); if not, they must be content with straw (fr.
51). This seems to have been the view taken by
Theophrastos, who said that the headstrong tempera-
ment of Herakleitos sometimes led him into incomplete-
ness and inconsistencies of statement.* But that is

by Stoic editors, and intended to emphasise their view that the subject of
the work was ethical or political (Diog. ix. 15 ; R. P. 30 c).

1 Diog. ix. 5(R. P. 30). Bywater has followed this hint in his arrange-
_ ment of the fragments. The three sections are 1-90, 91-97, 98-130.

2 R.P. 30a. The epithet ὁ σκοτεινός is of late date, but Timon of Phleious
already called him αἰνικτής (fr. 43, Diels).

3 See the valuable observations of Diels in the Introduction to his
Herakleitos von Ephesos, pp. iv. 544.

4 Cf. Diog. ix. 6 (R. P. 31).

; 10

The frag-
ments.

146 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

a very different thing from studied obscurity and the
disciplina arcanz sometimes attributed to him; if
Herakleitos does not go out of his way to make his
meaning clear, neither does he hide it (fr. 11).

65. I give a version of the fragments according to
the arrangement of Mr. Bywater’s exemplary edition.’

(1) It is wise to hearken, not to me, but to my‘ Word, and
to confess that all things are one. R. P. 4o.

(2) Though this Word? is true evermore, yet men are as
unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as
before they have heard it at all. For, though all things come
to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they
had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and
deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its
nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not
what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they
do in sleep. R. P. 32.

1 Tn his edition, Diels has given up all attempt to arrange the fragments
according to subject, and this makes his text unsuitable for our purpose.
I think, too, that he overestimates the difficulty of an approximate arrange-
ment, and makes too much of the view that the style of Herakleitos was
‘*aphoristic.” That it was so, is an important and valuable remark ; but
it does not follow that Herakleitos wrote like Nietzsche. For a Greek,
however prophetic in his tone, there must always be a distinction between
an aphoristic and an incoherent style. See the excellent remarks of Lortzing
in Berl. Phil. Wochenschr. 1896, pp. I 546.

2 Both Bywater and Diels accept Bergk’s λόγου for δόγματος and Miller’s
εἶναι for εἰδέναι. Cf. Philo, “eg. all. iii. c, quoted in Bywater’s note.

3 The Adyos is simply the discourse of Herakleitos himself; though, as
he is a prophet, we may call it ‘“‘the Word.” It can neither mean a
discourse addressed to Herakleitos nor yet ‘‘reason.” (Cf. Zeller, p. 630,
n, 1; Eng. trans. ii. p. 7, n. 2.) A difficulty has been raised about the words
ἐόντος αἰεί. How could Herakleitos say that his discourse had always
existed? The answer is that in Ionic ἐών means ‘‘ true” when coupled
with words like λόγος. Cf. Herod. i. 30, τῷ ἐόντι χρησάμενος λέγει ; and
even Aristoph. Frogs, 1052, οὐκ ὄντα λόγον. It is only by taking the words
in this way that we can understand Aristotle’s hesitation as to the proper
punctuation of the fragment (Δ᾽ οί. Τ' 5. 1407 b15; R. P. 30a). The Stoic
interpretation given by Marcus Aurelius, iv. 46 (R. P. 32 b), must be
rejected altogether. The word λόγος was never used like that till post-
Aristotelian times.

-
~

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 147

- (2) Fools when they do hear are like the deaf: of them
does the saying bear witness that they are absent when
present. R. P. 31 ἃ.

-- (4) Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have

souls that understand not their language. R. P. 42.

(5) The many do not take heed of such things as those
they meet with, nor do they mark them when they are taught,
though they think they do, i

(6) Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak.

(7) If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find
it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.!

-(8) Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a
little. Ἐς P. 44 Ὁ.

..(10) Nature loves to hide. R. P. 34 f.

-(11) The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters
nor hides his meaning, but shows it bya sign. R. P. 30 ἃ.

(12) And the Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirth-
less, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand
years with her voice, thanks to the god in her. R. P. 30 ἃ.

(13) The things that can be seen, heard, and learned are
what I prize the most. R. P. 42.

(14) . . . bringing untrustworthy witnesses in support of
disputed points.

(15) The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.”
RP, 42. Ὁ.

--(16) The learning of many things teacheth not understand-
ing, else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and
again Xenophanes and Hekataios. R. P. 31.

(17) Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, practised inquiry
beyond all other men, and choosing out these writings, claimed
for his own wisdom what was but a knowledge of many
things and an art of mischief.2 R. P. 31 a.

1 I have departed from the punctuation of Bywater here, and supplied a
fresh object to the verb as suggested by Gomperz (A7ch. i. 100).

2 Cf. Herod. i. 8, The application is, no doubt, the same as that of
the last two fragments. Personal inquiry is better than tradition.

3 See Chap. II. p. 107, n. 1. The best attested reading is ἐποιήσατο,
not ἐποίησεν, and ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ means ‘‘claimed as hisown.”” The words
ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφάς have been doubted since the time of
Schleiermacher, and Diels has now come to regard the whole fragment as

_ a ol mn ted -

148 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(18) Of all whose discourses I have heard, there is not one
who attains to understanding that wisdom is apart from all.
πὸ Py πα

-- (10) Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by
which all things are steered through all things. R. P. 40.

(20) This world,! which is the same for all, no one of gods
or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be
an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling, and measures
going out. R. P. 35.”

(21) The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea ; and
half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind? .. . R. P. 35 b.

-- (22) All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for
all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares.
ἘΚ,

(23) It becomes liquid sea, and is measured by the same
tale as before it became earth.* R. P. 39.

(24) Fire is want and surfeit. R. P. 36 a.

spurious. This is because it was used to prove that Pythagoras wrote
books (cf. Diels, Avch. iii. p. 451). As Mr. Bywater has pointed out,
however, the fragment itself makes no such statement ; it only says that
he read books, which we may presume he did. I would further suggest
that the old-fashioned cvyypadds is rather too good for a forger, and that
the omission of the very thing to be proved is remarkable. The last
suggestion of a book by Pythagoras disappears with the reading ἐποιήσατο
for ἐποίησεν. Of course a late writer who read of Pythagoras making
extracts from books would assume that he put them into a book of his own,
just as people did in his own days. For the rest, I understand ἱστορίη of
science, which is contrasted with the κακοτεχνίη which Pythagoras derived
from the συγγραφαί of men like Pherekydes of Syros.

1 The word κόσμος must mean ‘‘ world” here, not merely ‘‘ order” ; for
only the world could be identified with fire. This use of the word is
Pythagorean, and there is no reason to doubt that Herakleitos may have
known it.

2 It is important to notice that μέτρα is internal accusative with ἁπτόμενον,
‘* with its measures kindling and its measures going out.”

3 On the word πρηστήρ, see below, p. 165, n. 2.

4 The subject of fr. 23 is γῆ, as we see from Diog. ix. 9 (R. P. 36),
πάλιν τε αὖ τὴν γῆν χεῖσθαι; and Aet. i. 3, 11 (Dox. p. 284 a 1; Ὁ 5),
ἔπειτα ἀναχαλωμένην τὴν γῆν ὑπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς χύσει (Diibner: φύσει, {107γ2)
ὕδωρ ἀποτελεῖσθαι. Herakleitos might quite well say γῆ θάλασσα διαχέεται,
and the context in Clement (S¢vom. ν. p. 712) seems to imply this. The
phrase μετρέεται eis τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον can only mean that the proportion of
the measures remains constant. So practically Zeller (p. 690, n. 1), 22
derselben Grosse.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 149

- (25) Fire lives the death of air,! and air lives the death of |.

fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water, |
ee Fs 37; .

τ (26) Fire in its advance will judge and convict 2 all things.
R. P. 36 a.

~-(27) How can one hide from that which never sets ?

--(28) It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all
things. R. P. 35 Ὁ.

(29) The sun will not overstep his measures; if he does,
the Erinyes, the “handmaids of Justice, will find him out.
R. P. 39.

(30) The limit of East and West is the Bear; and opposite
the Bear is the boundary of bright Zeus.

(31) If there were no sun it would be night, for all the
other stars could do.

(32) The sun is new every day.

(33) See above, Chap. I. p. 41, n. 1.

(34) . . . the seasons that bring all things.

(35) Hesiod is most men’s teacher. Men think he knew
very many things, a man who did not know day or night!

-They are one. R. P. 39 b.

(36) God is day and night, winter and summer, war and
peace, surfeit and hunger ; but he takes various shapes, just as
fire,° when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the
savour of each, R. P. 39 b.

1 With Diels I adopt the transposition (proposed by Tocco) of dépos and
γῆς.

5 T understand ἐπελθόν of the πυρὸς ἔφοδος, for which see below, p. 168.
Diels has pointed out that καταλαμβάνειν is the old word for ‘‘ to convict.”
It is, literally, ‘‘ to overtake,” just as αἱρεῖν is ‘‘to catch.”

3 In this fragment it is clear that οὖρος Ξετέρματα, and therefore means
** boundary,” not “hill.” As αἴθριος Ζεύς means the bright blue sky, I do
not think its οὖρος can be the South Pole, as Diels says. It is more likely
the horizon. I am inclined to take the fragment as a protest against the
Pythagorean theory of a southern hemisphere.

4 We learn from Diog. ix. 10 (quoted below, p. 164) that Herakleitos
explained why the sun was warmer and brighter than the moon, and this
is doubtless a'fragment of that passage. I now think the words ἕνεκα τῶν

᾿ ἄλλων ἄστρων are from Herakleitos. So Diels.

ὃ Hesiod said Day was the child of Night ( Z%eog. 124).

ὁ. Reading ὅκωσπερ πῦρ for ὅκωσπερ with Diels.

150 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

-(37) If all things were turned to smoke, the nostrils would
distinguish them.

J (38) Souls smell in Hades. R. P. 46 d.
fF (39) Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools ;
ἰ what is wet dries, and the parched is τηοϊβίβά.

-- (40) It scatters and it gathers; it advances and retires,

(41, 42) You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for
fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. R. P. 33.

(43) Homer was wrong in saying: “ Would that strife
might perish from among gods and men!” He did not see
that he was praying for the destruction of the universe ; for, if
his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.1... R. P.
34 d. !

‘(44) War is the father of all and the king of all; and some
he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free.
ἜΝ, Ὡς Δ.

-- (45) Men do not know how what is at variance agrees with
itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions,? like that of
the bow and the lyre. R. P. 34.

--(46) It is the opposite which is good for us.? »

- (47) The hidden attunement is better than the open.
ἘΠ; 34.

(48) Let us not conjecture at random about the greatest
things. |

(49) Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very
many things indeed.

(50) The straight and the crooked path of the fuller’s comb
is one and the same.

~(51) Asses would rather have straw than gold. R. P. 31 a.

1 77. xviii. 107. I add the words οἰχήσεσθαι yap πάντα from Simpl. zz
Cat. (88 Ὁ 30 schol. Br.). They seem to me at least to represent something
that was in the original.

2 I cannot think it likely that Herakleitos said both παλίντονος and
παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη, and I prefer Plutarch’s παλίντονος (R. P. 34 b) to the
παλίντροπος of Hippolytos. Diels thinks that the polemic of Parmenides
decides the question in favour of παλίντροπος ; but see below, p. 184, n. I,
and Chap. IV. p. 198, n. 4.

3 This, I now think, is the medical rule ai δ᾽ ἰατρεῖαι διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων,
e.g. βοηθεῖν τῷ θερμῷ ἐπὶ τὸ ψυχρόν (Stewart on Arist. Ath. 1104
b 16).

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 151

—(51a) Oxen are happy when they find bitter vetches to
δαὶ. R. P. 48 b.
~-(52) The sea is the purest and the impurest water. Fish
can drink it, and it is good for them; to men it is undrinkable
and destructive. R. P. 47 ¢.
~-(53) Swine wash in the mire, and barnyard fowls in dust.
(54) . . . to delight in the mire.
-- (5.5) Every beast is driven to pasture with blows.”
(56) Same as 45. _
~(57) Good and ill are one. R. P. 47 ¢.

(58) Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the sick,
demand a fee for it which nes do not deserve to get. R. P.
47 8
--(59) Couples are things whole and things not whole, what
is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious
and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and
ali things issue from the one.*

(60) Men would not have known the name of justice if
these things were not.®

(61) To God all things are fair and good and right, but
men hold some things wrong and some right. ΚΝ. P. 45.
--(62) We must know that war is common to all and strife
is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away (?)
through strife.

--(64) All the things we see when awake are death, even as
all we see in slumber are sleep. ΚΕ. P. 42 c.®

(65) The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to
be called by the name of Zeus. R. P. 4o.

~(66) The bow (βιός) is called life (βίος), but its work is
death. R. P. 49 a.

1 Fr. 51@ was recovered by Bywater from Albertus Magnus. See
Journ. Phil. ix. p. 230.

2 On fr. 55 see Diels in Ber?. Sttzb. 1901, p. 188.

3 I now read ἐπαιτέονται with Bernays and Diels.

4 On fr. 59 see Diels in Beri. Sitsb. 1901, p. 188. The reading συνάψιες
seems to be well attested and gives an excellent sense. It is not, however,
correct to say that the optative could not be used in an imperative sense.

5 By “‘ these things,” he probably meant all kinds of injustice.

6 Diels supposes that fr. 64 went on ὁκόσα δὲ τεθνηκότες ζωή. “‘ Life,
Sleep, Death is the threefold ladder in psychology, as in physics Fire,
Water, Earth.”

eee

ς.

152 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

--(67) Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the
one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life. R. P. 46.
(68) For it is death to souls to become water, and death
to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and
from water, soul. R. P. 38.
~-(69) The way up and the way down is one and the same.
R. P. 36 d.
(70) In the circumference of a circle the beginning and
end are common.
~-(71) You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling
in any direction, so deep is the measure of it. R. P. 41 d.
(72) It is pleasure to souls to become moist. R. P. 46 c.
(73) A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless
lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul
moist. R. P. 42.
(74-76) The dry soul is the wisest and best.2,_ R. P. 42.
--(77) Man is kindled and put out like a light in the night-
time. | )
--(78) And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead,
awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted ὃ and

1 T think now with Diels that the words οὕτω βαθὺν λόγον ἔχει are
probably genuine. They present no difficulty if we remember that λόγος
means ‘‘ measurement,” as in fr. 23.

3 This fragment is interesting because of the great antiquity of the
corruptions which it has suffered. According to Stephanus, who is followed
by Bywater and Diels, we should read: Αὔη ψυχὴ σοφωτάτη καὶ ἀρίστη,
ξηρή (or rather &np4—the Ionic form would only appear when the word got
into the text) being a mere gloss upon the somewhat unusual avy. When
once ἕξηρή got into the text, aim became αὐγή, and we get the sentence:
“‘the dry light is the wisest soul,” whence the szccum lumen of Bacon.
Now this reading is certainly as old as Plutarch, who, in his Life of Romulus
(c. 28), takes αὐγή to mean lightning, as it sometimes does, and supposes
the idea to be that the wise soul bursts through the prison of the body like
dry lightning (whatever that may be) through a cloud. I do not think that
Clement’s making the same mistake proves anything at all (Zeller, p. 705,
n. 3; Eng. trans. i. p. 80, ἢ. 2), except that he had read his Plutarch.
Lastly, it is worth noticing that, though Plutarch must have written αὐγή,
the MSS. vary between αὕτη and αὐτή. The next stage is the corruption
of the corrupt αὐγή into οὗ γῆ. This yields the sentiment that ‘‘ where the
earth is dry, the soul is wisest,” and is as old as Philo (see Mr. Bywater’s
notes). .

3 T understand μεταπεσόντα here as meaning ‘‘ moved” from one γραμμή
or division of the draught-board to another.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 153

become the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and
become the former. R. P. 47.
~(79) Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is
achild’s. R. P. 40 ἃ.
--(80) I have sought for myself. R. P. 48.
~(81) We step and do not step into the same rivers ; we are
and are not. ΒΕ. P. 33 ἃ.
(82) It is a weariness to labour for the same masters and
be ruled by them. A
“—(83) It rests by changing.
(84) Even the posset separates if it is not stirred.
(85) Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung,
~(86) When they are born, they wish to live and to meet

. with their dooms—or rather to rest—and they leave children ,

behind them to meet with their dooms in turn.

(87-89) /A man may be a grandfather in thirty years, / Ta 245

~-(90) Those who are asleep are fellow-workers. . . .
(91a) Thought is common to all.

(914) Those who speak with understanding must hold fast
to what is common to all as a city holds fast to its law, and
even more strongly. For all human laws are fed by the one
divine law. It prevails as much as it will, and suffices for all
things with something to spare. R. P. 43.

~-(92) So we must follow the common,! yet the many live as
if they had a wisdom of their own. R. P. 44.
--(93) They are estranged from that with which they have
most constant intercourse.2 R. P. 32 Ὁ.
(94) It is not meet to act and*speak like men asleep.
~(95) The waking have one common world, but the sleeping
turn aside each into a world of his own.

ι
Ἂς.

1 Sext. Math. vii. 133, διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ ξυνῷ. It seems to me that
these words must belong to Herakleitos, though Bywater omits them. On
the other hand, the words τοῦ λόγου δὲ ὄντος ξυνοῦ (so, not δ᾽ ἐόντος, the
best MSS.) seem clearly to belong to the Stoic interpreter whom Sextus 1s
following, and who was anxious to connect this fragment with fr. 2 (ὀλέγα
προσδιελθὼν ἐπιφέρει) in order to get the doctrine of the κοινὸς λόγος. The
whole context in Sextus should be read.

2 The words λόγῳ Tw τὰ ὅλα διοικοῦντι, which Diels prints as part of
this fragment, seem to me to belong to Marcus Aurelius and not to
Herakleitos.

154 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(96) The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has.
R. P. 45.

(97) Man is called a baby by God, even as a child by a
man. R. P. 45.
~ (98, 99) The wisest man is an ape compared to God, just
as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man.

-(100) The people must fight for its law as for its walls,
Be F.4D,

(ro1) Greater deaths win greater portions. R. P. 49 a.

—(102) Gods and men honour those who are slain in battle.
R. P. 49 a.

~(103) Wantonness needs putting out, even more than a
house on fire. R. P. 49 a.

(104) It is not good for men to get all they wish to get.
It is sickness that makes health pleasant ; evil,! good; hunger,
plenty ; weariness, rest. R. P. 48 b.

(105-107) It is hard to fight with one’s heart’s desire.?
Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul.
Rol. 49 ἃ:

(108, 10g) It is best to hide folly ; but it is hard in times
of relaxation, over our cups.

(110) And it is law, too, to obey the ‘counsel of one.
R. P. 49 a.
~-(111) For what thought or wisdom have they? They
follow the poets and take the crowd as their teacher, knowing
not that there are many bad and few good. For even the
best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal
glory among mortals, while most of them are glutted like
beasts.2 R. P. 31 a.

~—(112) In Priene lived Bias, son of Teutamas, who is of
more account than the rest. (He said, ‘‘ Most men are bad.”)

~(113) One is ten thousand to me, if he be the best. R. P.
31 a.

(114) The Ephesians would do well to hang themselves,

1 Adopting Heitz’s κακὸν for καὶ with Diels.

2 The word θυμός has its Homeric sense. The gratification of desire
implies the exchange of dry soul-fire (fr. 74) for moisture (fr. 72). Aristotle
understood θυμός here as anger (2 7. Mic. B 2, 1105 a 8).

ὃ This seems to be a clear reference to the ‘‘three lives.” See Chap.
IT. § 45, p. 108.

Ψ

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 155

every grown man of them, and leave the city to beardless
lads ; for they have cast out Hermodoros, the best man among
them, saying, ‘We will have none who is best among us ; if
there be any such, let him be so elsewhere and among others.”
R. P. 29 b.

—(115) Dogs bark at every one they do not know. R. P.
31 a, ?

(116)... . (The wise man) is not known because of men’s
want of belief. |

(117) The fool is fluttered at every word. R. P. 44 Ὁ.

(118) The most esteemed of them knows but fancies ;*
yet of a truth justice shall overtake the artificers of lies and
the false witnesses.

(119) Homer should be turned out of the lists and whipped,
and Archilochos likewise. R. P. 31.

(120) One day is like any other.

~~(121) Man’s character is his fate.”

—(122) There awaits men when they die such things as they
look not for nor dream of. R. P. 46 d.

‘ (123)... *that they rise up and become the wakeful
+ aaa of the quick and dead. ἈΚ. P. 46 d.

(124) Night-walkers, Magians, priests of Bakchos and
ete of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.

— (125) ‘The mysteries practised among men are unholy
bivstetins Be PS 48.

(126) And they pray to these images, as if one were to
talk with a man’s house, knowing not what gods or heroes are.
R. P. 49 a.

~-(127) For if it were not to Dionysos that they made a
procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be
acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysos

1 Reading δοκέοντα with Schleiermacher (or δοκέοντ᾽ ὧν with Diels). I
have omitted φυλάσσειν, as I do not know what it means, and none of the
conjectures commends itself.

2 On the meaning of δαίμων here, see my edition of Aristotle’s Z¢hzcs,
pp. 1 sq. As Professor Gildersleeve puts it, the δαίμων is the individual
form of τύχη, as κήρ is of θάνατος.

3 T have not ventured to include the words ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐόντι at the beginning,
as the text seems to me too uncertain. See, however, Diels’s interesting
note.

156 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

in whose honour they go mad and keep the feast of the wine-
vat. R. P. 49.

-(129, 130) They vainly purify themselves by defiling them-
selves with blood, just as if one who had stepped into the mud
were to wash his feet in mud. Any man who marked him
doing thus, would deem him mad. R. P. 49 a.

Shak aed 66. It will be seen that some of these fragments
tradition. are far from clear, and there are probably not a few of
which the meaning will never be recovered. We
naturally turn, then, to the doxographers for a clue;
but, as ill-luck will have it, they are far less instructive
with regard to Herakleitos than we have found them
in other cases. We have, in fact, two great difficulties
to contend with. The first is the unusual weakness of
the doxographical tradition itself. Hippolytos, upon
whom we can generally rely for a fairly accurate
account of what Theophrastos really said, derived the
material for his first four chapters, which treat of
Thales, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, and Empedokles, ee τὰ
from the excellent epitome which he afterwards used,
but from a biographical compendium, which consisted
for the most part of apocryphal anecdotes and apo-
phthegms. It was based, further, on some writer of
Successions who regarded Herakleitos and Empedokles
as Pythagoreans. They are therefore placed side
by side, and their doctrines are hopelessly mixed up
together. The link between MHerakleitos and the
Pythagoreans was Hippasos of Metapontion, in whose
system, as we know, fire played an important part.
1 On the source used by Hippolytos in the first four chapters of Ref i.
see Diels, Dox. p. 145. We must carefully distinguish Ref i. and Ref. ix.
as sources of information about Herakleitos. The latter book is an
attempt to show that the Monarchian heresy of Noetos was derived from

Herakleitos instead of from the Gospel, and is a rich mine of Herakleitean
fragments.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 157

Theophrastos, following Aristotle, had spoken of the
two in the same sentence, and this was enough to put
the writers of Successtons off the track." We are forced,
then, to look to the more detailed of the two accounts
of the opinions of Herakleitos given in Diogenes,’ which
goes back to the Vetusta Placita, and is, fortunately,
pretty full and accurate. All our other sources are
more or less tainted.

The second difficulty which we have to face is
even more serious. Most of the commentators on
Herakleitos mentioned in Diogenes were Stoics,? and
it is certain that their paraphrases were sometimes
taken for the original. Now, the Stoics held the
Ephesian in peculiar veneration, and sought to
interpret him as far as possible in accordance with
their own system. Further, they were fond of “accom- ,
modating” * the views of earlier thinkers to their own,

_and this has had serious consequences, In particular,
the Stoic theories of the λόγος and the ἐκπύρωσις are
constantly ascribed to Herakleitos by our authorities,
and the very fragments are adulterated with scraps of
Stoic terminology.

. 67. Herakleitos looks down not only on the mass The discovery

᾿ Ὁ 3 Ξ of Herakleitos
of men, but on all previous inquirers into nature.

2 Arist. Met, A, 3. 984 a7 (R. Ρ. 56 ο) : Theophr. af. Simpl. Phys. 23,
33 (R. P. 36).

2 For these double accounts see Dox. pp. 163 sqq. and Appendix, § 15.

3 Diog. ix. 15 (R. P. 30 c). Schleiermacher rightly insisted upon this.

4 The word συνοικειοῦν is used of the Stoic method of interpretation by
Philodemos (cf. Dox. 547 Ὁ, n.), and Cicero (W.D. i. 41) renders it by
accommodare. Chrysippos in particular gave a great impulse to this sort
of thing, as we may best learn from Galen, de Plac. Hippocr. et Plat.
Book iii. Good examples are Aet. i. 13, 2; 28, 13 iv. 3, 12,—where ©
distinctively Stoic doctrines are ascribed to Herakleitos. What the Stoics
were capable of, we see’from Kleanthes, fr. 55, Pearson. He proposed to

read Zed dvadwiwvate in 7]. xvi. 233, ὡς τὸν ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἀναθυμιώμενον
ἀέρα διὰ τὴν ἀνάδοσιν ᾿Αναδωδωναῖον ὄντα.

A

158 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

This must mean that he believed himself to have
attained insight into some truth which had not
hitherto been recognised, though it was, as it were,
staring men in the face (fr. 93). Clearly, then, if we

wish to get at the central thing in his teaching, we

must_try to find out what he was thinking of when he

launched into those denunciations of human dulness

-.,.»--

and ignorance,» The answer seems to be given in two
/9 fragments, 18 and 45. From them we gather that
the truth hitherto ignored is that the many apparently

independent and conflicting things we_know are really

one, and that, on the other hand, this one is also many.

The “strife of opposites ” is really an “attunement”
(ἁρμονία). From this it follows that wisdom is not
a knowledge of many things, but the perception of the
underlying unity of the warring opposites. That this
really was. the fundamental thought of Herakleitos is
stated by Philo. He says: “For that which is made
up of both the opposites is one; and, when the one is
divided, the opposites are disclosed. Is not this. just
what the Greeks say their great and much belauded
Herakleitos put in the forefront of his philosophy as
summing it all up, and boasted of as a new dis-
covery?”* We shall take the elements of this theory
one by one, and see how they are to be understood.
ang 68. Anaximander had taught already that the
opposites were separated out from the Boundless, but
passed away into it once mere, so paying the penalty
for their unjust encroachments on one. another. It is

1 See Patin, Heraklits Einheitslehre (1886). To Patin undoubtedly
belongs the credit of showing clearly that the unity of opposites was the
central doctrine of Herakleitos. It is not always easy, however, to follow
him when he comes to details.

2 Philo, Rev. Div. Her. 43 (R. P. 34 c).

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 159

here implied that there is something wrong in the war
of opposites, and that the existence of the Many is a
breach in the unity of the One. The truth which
Herakleitos proclaimed was that there is no One
without the Many, and no Many without the One,
The world is at once one and many, and it is just the
“opposite tension”. of the Many that constitutes the
unity of the One.

The credit of having been the first to see this is
expressly assigned to Herakleitos by Plato. In the
Sophist (242 d), the Eleatic stranger, after explaining
how the Eleatics maintained that what we call many
is really one, proceeds, :—

But certain Ionian and (at a later date) certain Sicilian

Muses remarked that it was safest to unite these two things, |

and to say that reality is both many and one, and is kept
together by Hate and Love. “For,” say the more severe
Muses, “in its division it is always being brought together”
(cf. fr. 59); while the softer Muses relaxed the requirement
that this should always be so, and said that the All was
alternately one and at peace through the power of Aphrodite,
and many and at war with itself because of something they
called Strife.

In this passage the Ionian Muses stand, of course;
for Herakleitos, and the Sicilian for Empedokles, We
remark also that the differentiation of the one into
many, and the integration of the many into one, are
both eternal and simultaneous, and that this is the
ground upon which the system‘of Herakleitos is con-
trasted with that of Empedokles. We shall come
back to that point again. Meanwhile we confine our-
selves to this, that, according to Plato, Herakleitos
taught that reality was at once many and one.

We must be careful, however, not to imagine that

Fire,

160 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

what Herakleitos thus discovered was a logical principle.
This was the mistake of Lassalle’s book.’ The identity
in and through difference which he proclaimed was
purely physical; logic did not yet exist, and as the
principle of identity had not been formulated, it would
have been impossible to protest against an abstract
application of it. The identity which he explains as
consisting in difference is simply that of the primary
substance in all its manifestations. This identity had
been realised already by the Milesians, but they had
found a difficulty in the difference. Anaximander had
treated the strife of opposites as an “injustice,” and
what Herakleitos set himself to show was that, on the
contrary, it was the highest justice (fr, 62).

69. All this made it necessary for him to seek out a
new primary substance. He wanted not merely some-
thing out of which the diversified world we know might

1 The source of his error was Hegel’s remarkable statement that there
was no proposition of Herakleitos that he had not taken up into his own
logic (Gesch. d. Phil. i. 328). The example which he cites is the state-
ment that Being does not exist any more than not-Being, for which he
refers to Arist. 2221. A, 4. This, however, is not there ascribed to Herakleitos
at all, but to Leukippos or Demokritos, with whom it meant that space was
as real as matter (8 175). Aristotle does, indeed, tell us in the Metaphysics
that ‘‘some” think Herakleitos says that the same thing can be and not
be; but he adds that it does not follow that a man thinks what he says
(Met. T 3. 1005 b 24). I take this to mean that, though Herakleitos
did make this assertion in words, he did not mean by it what the same
assertion would naturally have meant at a later date. Herakleitos was
speaking only of nature ; the logical meaning of the words never occurred
to him. This is confirmed by K, 5. 1062 a 31, where we are told that by
being questioned in a certain manner Herakleitos could be made to admit
the principle of contradiction; as it was, he did not understand what he
said. In other words, he was unconscious of its logical bearing.

Aristotle was aware, then, that the theories of Herakleitos were not
to be understood in a logical sense. On the other hand, this does not
prevent him from saying that according to the view of Herakleitos, every-
thing would be true (7224. A, 7. 1012 a 24), If we remember his constant
attitude to earlier thinkers, this will not lead us to suspect either his good
faith or his intelligence. (See Appendix, § 2.)

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 161

conceivably be made, or from which opposites could be
“separated out,” but something which of its own nature
would pass into everything else, while everything else
would pass in turn into it. This he found in Fire, and
it is easy to see why, if we consider the phenomenon
of combustion, even as it appears to the plain man.
‘The quantity of fire in a flame burning steadily appears
to remain the same, the flame seems to be what we
call a “thing.” And yet the substance of it is con-
tinually changing. It is always passing away in
smoke, and its place is always being taken by fresh
matter from the fuel that feeds it. This is just what
we want. If we regard the world as an “ ever-living
fire” (fr. 20), we can understand how it is always
becoming all things, while all things are always return-
ing to it.)
70. This necessarily brings with it a certain way of Flux.

1 That the Fire of Herakleitos was something on the same level as the
** Air” of Anaximenes and not a ‘‘symbol,” is clearly implied in such
passages as Arist. 2722. A, 3. 984 25. In support of the view that some-
thing different from common fire is meant, Plato, Cra¢. 413 Ὁ, is some-
times quoted; but a consideration of the context shows that the passage
will not bear thisinterpretation. Plato is discussing the derivation of δίκαιον
from δια-ιόν, and certainly δίκη was a prominent Herakleitean conception,
and a good deal that is here said may be the authentic doctrine of the
school. Sokrates goes on to complain that when he asks what this is which
** goes through” everything, he gets very inconsistent answers. One says
it is the sun, Another asks if there is no justice after sunset, and says it is
simply fire. A third says it is not fire itself, but the heat which is in fire.
A fourth identifies it with Mind. Now all we are entitled to infer from
this is that different accounts were given in the Herakleitean school.
These were-a little less crude than the original doctrine of the master, but
for all that not one of them implies anything immaterial or symbolical.
The view that it was not fire itself, but Heat, which ‘‘ passed through”
all things, is related to the theory of Herakleitos as Hippo’s Moisture is
related to the Water of Thales. It is quite likely, too, that some Hera-
kleiteans attempted to fuse the system of Anaxagoras with their own, just
as Diogenes of Apollonia tried to fuse it with that of Anaximenes, We
shall see, indeed, that we still have a work in which this attempt is made
(p. 167, n. 2). ἂ

It

162 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

looking at the change and movement of the world.
Fire burns continuously and without interruption. It
is therefore always consuming fuel and always liberating
smoke. Everything is either mounting upwards to
serve as fuel, or sinking downwards after having
nourished the flame. It follows that the whole of
reality is like an ever-flowing stream, and that nothing
is ever at rest for a moment. The substance of the
things we see is in constant change. Even as we look
at them, some of the matter of which they are composed
has already passed into something else, while fresh
matter has come into them from another source. This
theory is usually summed up, appropriately enough,
in the phrase “ All things are flowing” (πάντα ῥεῖ),
though, as it happens, it cannot be proved that this is
a quotation from Herakleitos, Plato, however, expresses
the idea quite clearly. “ Nothing ever is, everything is
becoming”; “ All things are in motion like streams” ;
“All things are passing, and nothing abides”; “ Hera-
kleitos says somewhere that all things pass and naught
_abides ; and, comparing things to the current of a river,
he says that you cannot step twice into the same stream ”
. (cf. fr. 41)—these are the terms in which he describes
the system. And Aristotle says the same thing, “ All
things are in motion,” “nothing steadfastly is.”?
Herakleitos held, in fact, that any given thing, however
-stable in appearance, was merely a section in the
stream, and that the matter composing it was never
the same in any two consecutive moments of -time.
We shall see presently how he conceived this process
to operate ; meanwhile we remark that the idea was

1 Plato, 7hz. 152 e 1; Crat. 401 ἃ 5, 402 a 8; Arist. Zop. A, 11. 104
b 22; de Caelo, Τ', 1. 298 Ὁ 30; Phys. Oy) 3. 253 8 8:

HHERAGLEITOS OF EPHESOS 163

not altogether novel, and that it is hardly the central
point in the system of Herakleitos. The Milesians
held a similar view. The flux of Herakleitos was at
most more unceasing and universal.

71. Herakleitos appears to have worked out the The Upward
details of the perpetual flux with reference to the ns
theories of Anaximenes.' It is unlikely, however, that
he explained the transformations of matter by means
of rarefaction and condensation.2 Theophrastos, it
appears, suggested that he did; but he allowed it was
by no means clear. The passage from Diogenes which
we are about to quote has faithfully preserved this
touch.2 In the fragments, at any rate, we find
nothing about rarefaction and condensation. The
expression used is “exchange” (fr. 22); and this is
certainly a very good name for what happens when
fire gives out smoke and takes in fuel instead.

It has been pointed out that, in default of Hippolytos,
our best account of the Theophrastean doxography of
Herakleitos is the fuller of the two accounts given in
Laertios Diogenes. It is as follows :-—

His Opinions on particular points are these:—

He held that Fire was the element, and that all things
were an exchange for fire, produced by condensation and
rarefaction. But he explains nothing clearly. All things were
produced in opposition, and all things were in flux like a river.

The all is finite and the world is one. It arises from
fire, and is consumed again by fire alternately through all
eternity in certain cycles. This happens according to fate.
That which leads to the becoming of the opposites is called
War and Strife ; that which leads to. the final conflagration is
Concord and Peace.

1 See above, Chap. I. § 29.
2 See, however, the remark of Diels quoted R. P. 36 c.
3 Diog. ix. 8, σαφῶς δ᾽ οὐθὲν ἐκτίθεται.

164 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

He called change the upward and the downward path, and
held that the world comes into being in virtue of this. When
fire is condensed it becomes moist, and when compressed it
turns to water; water being congealed turns to earth, and
this he calls the downward path. And, again, the earth is in
turn liquefied, and from it water arises, and from that
everything else; for he refers almost everything to the
evaporation from the sea. This is the path upwards.
ie a US

He held, too, that exhalations arose both from the sea and
the land; some bright and pure, others dark. Fire was
nourished by the bright ones, and moisture by the others.
| He does not make it clear what is the nature of that which
' surrounds the world. He held, however, that there were
bowls in it with the concave sides turned towards us, in which
the bright exhalations were collected and produced flames.
These were the heavenly bodies.

The flame of the sun was the brightest and warmest ; for
the other heavenly bodies were more distant from the earth ;
and for that reason gave less light and heat. The moon, on
the other hand, was nearer the earth ; but it moved through
an impure region. The sun moved in a bright and unmixed
region, and at the same time was at just the right distance
from us. That is why it gives more heat and light. The
eclipses of the sun and moon were due to the turning of the
bowls upwards, while the monthly phases of the moon were
produced by a gradual turning of its bowl.

Day and night, months and seasons and years, rains and
winds, and things like these, were due to the different
exhalations. The bright exhalation, when ignited in the
circle of the sun, produced day, and the preponderance of the
opposite exhalations produced night. The increase of warmth
proceeding from the bright exhalation produced summer, and
the preponderance of moisture from the dark exhalation
produced winter. He assigns the causes of other things in
conformity with this.

As to the earth, he makes no clear statement about its.
nature, any more than he does about that of the bowls.

These, then, were his opinions. R. P. 39 Ὁ. ν ΤΣ

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 165

It is obvious that, if we can trust this passage, it is
of the greatest possible value ; and that, upon the whole,
we can trust it is shown by the fact that it follows the
exact order of topics to which all the doxographies
derived from the great work of Theophrastos adhere.
First we have the primary substance, then the world,
then the heavenly bodies, and lastly, meteorological
phenomena. We conclude, then, that it may be accepted
with the exceptions, firstly, of the probably erroneous
conjecture of Theophrastos as to rarefaction and
condensation mentioned above ; and secondly, of some
pieces of Stoical interpretation which come from the
Vetusta Placita.

Let us look at the details of the theory. The pure
fire, we are told, is to be found chiefly in the sun.
This, like the other heavenly bodies, is a trough or
bowl, or perhaps a sort of boat, with the concave side
turned towards us, in which the bright exhalations from
the sea collect and burn. How does the fire of the sun
pass into other forms? If we look at the fragments
which deal with the downward path, we find that the
first transformation that it undergoes is into sea, and
we are further told that half of the sea is earth and
half of it πρηστήρ (fr. 21). The full meaning of this
we shall see presently, but we must settle at once
what πρηστήρ is. Many theories have been advanced
upon the subject; but, so far as I know, no one* has
yet proposed to take the word in the sense which it
always bears elsewhere, that, namely, of hurricane
accompanied by a fiery waterspout.* Yet surely this is

1 This was written in 1890. In his Herakleitos von Ephesos (1901)
Diels takes it as I did, rendering G/uwind.

2 Cf, Herod. vii. 42, and Lucretius, vi. 424. Seneca (Quaest. Nat.
ii. 56) calls it ggmeus turbo. The opinions of early philosophers on these

166 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

just what is wanted. It is amply attested that
Herakleitos explained the rise of the sea to fire by
means of the bright evaporations; and we want a
similar meteorological explanation of the passing of
the fire back into sea. We want, in fact, something
which will stand equally for the smoke produced by the
burning of the sun and for the immediate stage between
fire and water. What could serve the turn better than
a fiery waterspout? It sufficiently resembles smoke to
be accounted for as the product of the sun’s combustion,
and it certainly comes down in the form of water.
And this interpretation becomes practically certain
when taken in connexion with the report of Aetios as
to the Herakleitean theory of πρηστῆρες. They were
due, we are told, “to the kindling and extinction of
"1 In other words, the bright vapour, after
kindling in the bowl of the sun and going out again,

clouds.

reappears as the dark fiery storm-cloud, and so passes
once more into sea. At the next stage we find water
continually passing into earth, We are already
familiar with this idea (δ 10), and no more need be said
about it. Turning to the “upward path,” we find that
the earth is liquefied in the same proportion as the sea
becomes earth, so that the sea is still “measured by
the same tale” (fr. 23). Half of it is earth and half of
it is πρηστήρ (fr. 21). This must mean that, at any
given moment, half of the sea is taking the downward

phenomena are collected in Aetios, iii. 3. The πρηστήρ of Anaximander
(Chap. I. p. 69, n. 2) is a different thing altogether, but it is quite likely that
Greek sailors named the meteorological phenomenon after the familiar
bellows of the smith.

1 Aet. iii. 3, 9, πρηστῆρας δὲ κατὰ νεφῶν ἐμπρήσεις καὶ σβέσεις
(sc. Ἡράκλειτος ἀποφαίνεται γίγνεσθαι). Diels (Herak/ettos, p. v.) seems to
regard the πρηστήρ as the form in which water ascends to heaven. But
the Greeks were well aware that waterspouts burst and come down.

— sl γ ἬΝ ee ΘΠ ΤΉ πο
he ‘

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 167

path, and has just been fiery storm-cloud, while half of
it is going up, and has just been earth. In proportion
as the sea is increased by rain, water passes into earth ;
in proportion as the sea is diminished by evaporation,
it is fed by the earth. Lastly, the ignition of the
bright vapour from the sea in the bowl of the sun com-
pletes the circle of the “upward and downward path.”

72. The question now arises, How is it that, in spite Measure for
measure.

of this constant flux, things appear relatively stable?

The answer of Herakleitos was that it is owing to the

observance of the “measures,” in virtue of which the

aggregate bulk of each form of matter in the long run

remains the same, though its substance is constantly o

changing, Certain “ measures ” of the “ ever-living fire ”

are always being kindled, while like “measures” are

always going out (fr. 20); and these measures the sun

will not exceed. ΑἹ] things are “exchanged” for fire

and fire for all things (fr. 22), and this implies that for

everything it takes, fire will give as much. “The sun wy 2

will not exceed his measures” (fr. 29). Cy. win plan of
And yet the “measures” are not to be regarded as

absolutely fixed. We gather from the passage of

Diogenes quoted above that Theophrastos spoke of an

alternate preponderance of the bright and dark |

exhalations, and Aristotle speaks of Herakleitos as |

explaining all things by evaporation.’ In particular, |

the alternation of day and night, summer and winter,

were accounted for in this way. Now, in a passage of

the pseudo-Hippokratean treatise Περὶ διαίτης which is

‘almost certainly of Herakleitean origin,’ we read of an

1 Arist. de An. B, 2. 405 a 26, τὴν ἀναθυμίασιν ἐξ ἧς τἄλλα συνίστησιν.
2 The presence of Herakleitean matter in this treatise was pointed out
by Gesner, but Bernays was the first to make any considerable use of it in
reconstructing the system. The older literature of the subject has been in

Man.

168 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

“advance of fire and water” in connexion with day and
night and the courses of the sun and moon.’ In fr. 26,
again, we read of fire “advancing,” and all these things
seem to be intimately connected. We must therefore
try to see whether there is anything in the remaining
fragments that bears upon the subject. ©

73. In studying this alternate advance of fire
and water, it will be convenient to start with the
microcosm. We have more definite information about
the two exhalations in man than about the analogous
processes in the world at large, and it would seem that
Herakleitos himself explained the world by man rather
than man by the world. In a well-known passage,
Aristotle implies that soul is identical with the dry
exhalation,’ and this is fully confirmed by the fragments.

the main superseded by Carl Fredrichs’ Hippokratische Untersuchungen
(1899), where also a satisfactory text of the sections which concern us is
given for the first time. Fredrichs shows that (as I said already in the
first edition) the work belongs to the period of eclecticism and reaction
which I have briefly characterised in § 184, and he points out that c 3, which
was formerly supposed to be mainly Herakleitean, is really from some work
which was strongly influenced by Empedokles and Anaxagoras. I think,

however, that he goes wrong in attributing the section to a nameless

‘¢ Physiker ” of the school of Archelaos, or even to Archelaos himself; it is
far more like what we should expect from the eclectic Herakleiteans whom
Plato describes in Craz. 413 c (see p. 161, n. 1). He is certainly wrong in
holding the doctrine of the balance of fire and water not to be Herakleitean,
and there is no justification for separating the remark quoted in the text
from its context because it happens to agree almost verbally with the
beginning of c. 3. As we shall see, that passage too is of Herakleitean
origin.

1 Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5. Ishould read thus: ἡμέρη καὶ εὐφρόνη ἐπὶ τὸ μήκιστον
καὶ ἐλάχιστον" ἥλιος, σελήνη ἐπὶ τὸ μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον" πυρὸς ἔφοδος
καὶ ὕδατος. In any case, the meaning is the same, and the sentence
occurs between χωρεῖ δὲ πάντα καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα ἄνω καὶ κάτω
ἀμειβόμενα and πάντα ταὐτὰ καὶ οὐ τὰ αὐτά, which are surely Herakleitean
utterances.

2 Arist. de An. A, 2. 4052 25(R. P. 38). Diels attributes to Herakleitos
himself the words καὶ ψυχαὶ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμιῶνται, which are
found in Areios Didymos after fr. 42. I can hardly believe, however, that
the word ἀναθυμίασις is Herakleitean. He seems rather to have called the

_ two exhalations καπνός and ἀήρ (cf. fr. 37).

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 169

Man is made up of three things, fire, water, and earth.
. But, just as in the macrocosm fire is identified with
the one wisdom, so in the microcosm the fire alone is
conscious. When it has left the body, the remainder,
the mere earth and water, is altogether worthless (fr. 85).
Of course, the fire which animates man is subject to
the “upward and downward path,” just as much as the
fire of the world. The Ilepi διαίτης has preserved the
obviously Herakleitean sentence: “ All things are pass-
ing, both human and divine, upwards and downwards
by exchanges.”! We are just as much in perpetual
flux as anything else in the world. We are and are
not the same for two consecutive instants (fr. 81).
The fire in us is perpetually becoming water, and the
water earth;-but, as the opposite process goes on_
simultaneously, we appear to remain the same.”

74. This, however, is not all. Man is subject toa fat Pp c=.
certain oscillation in his “measures” of fire and water,
and this gives rise to the alternations of sleeping and
waking, life and death. The Jocus classicus on this
subject is a passage of Sextus Empiricus,, which
reproduces the account of the Herakleitean psychology
given by Ainesidemos (Skeptic, c. 80-50 8Β.0.)». It
is as follows (R. P. 41) :—

1 Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5, χωρεῖ δὲ πάντα καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα ἄνω καὶ
κάτω ἀμειβόμενα.

2 We seem to have a clear reference to this in Epicharmos, fr. 2, Diels
(170 b, Kaibel): ‘* Look now at men too. One grows and another passes
away, and all are in change always. What changes in its substance (κατὰ
φύσιν) and never abides in the same spot, will already be something different
from what has passed away. So thou and I were different yesterday, and
are now quite other people, and again we shall become others and never
the same again, and so on in the same way.” This is put into the mouth
of a debtor who does not wish to pay. See Bernays on the αὐξανόμενος
λόγος (Ges. Adbh. i. pp. 109 sqq.).

3 Sextus quotes ‘‘Ainesidemos according to Herakleitos.” Natorp
holds (Forschungen, p. 78) that Ainesidemos really did combine

170 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The natural philosopher is of opinion that what surrounds
us? is rational and endowed with consciousness. According
to Herakleitos, when we draw in this divine reason by means
of respiration, we become rational. In sleep we forget, but
at our waking we become conscious once more. For in sleep,
when the openings of the senses close, the mind which is in
us is cut off from contact with that which surrounds us, and
only our connexion with it by means-of respiration is pre-
served as a sort of root (from which the rest may spring again) ;
and, when it is thus separated, it loses the power of memory
that it had before. When we awake again, however, it looks
out through the openings of the senses, as if through windows,
and coming together with the surrounding mind, it assumes
the power of reason. Just, then, as embers, when they are
brought near the the fire, change and become red-hot, and go
out when they are taken away from it again, so does the
portion of the surrounding mind which sojourns in our body
become irrational when it is cut off, and so does it become of
like nature to the whole when contact is established through
the greatest number of openings. ~

In this passage there is obviously a very large
admixture of later phraseology and of later ideas. In
particular, the identification of “that which surrounds
us” with the air cannot be Herakleitean; for Herak-
leitos can have known nothing of air, which in his day
was regarded as a form of water (§ 27). The
reference to the pores or openings of the senses is
probably foreign to him also; for the theory of pores
is due to Alkmaion (§ 96). Lastly, the distinction
between mind and body is far too sharply drawn. On
the other hand, the important rédle assigned to
respiration may very well be Herakleitean; for we

Herakleiteanism with Skepticism. Diels, on the other hand (Dox. pp.
210, 211), insists that Ainesidemos only gave an account of the theories of
Herakleitos. This controversy does not affect the use we make of the

passage.
1 +d περιέχον ἡμᾶς, opposed to but parallel with τὸ περιέχον τὸν κόσμον.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 171

have met with it already in Anaximenes. And we can
hardly doubt that the striking simile. of the embers
which glow when they are brought near the fire is
genuine (cf. fr. 77). The true Herakleitean doctrine
doubtless was, that sleep was produced by the
encroachment of moist, dark exhalations from the
water in the body, -which cause the fire to, burn low.
In sleep, we lose contact with the fire in the world
which is common to all, and retire to a world of our
own (fr. 95). In a soul where the fire and water
are evenly balanced, the equilibrium is restored in the
morning by an equal advance of the bright exhalation.

75. But in no soul are the fire and water thus (4) Life and
evenly balanced for long. One or the other acquires ἊΣ
predominance, and the result in either case is death.
Let us take each of these casesin turn. It is death, we
know, to souls to become water (fr. 68); but that is
just what happens to souls which seek after pleasure.
For pleasure is a moistening of the soul (fr. 72), as
may be seen in the case of the drunken man, who, in
pursuit of it, has moistened his soul to such an extent
that he does not know where he is going (fr. 73).
Even in gentle relaxation over our cups, it is more
difficult to hide folly than at other times (fr. 108).
That is why it is so necessary for us to quench
wantonness (fr. 103); for whatever our heart’s desire
insists on it purchases at the price of life, that is, of the
fire within us (fr. 105). Take now the other case.
The dry soul, that which has least moisture, is the best
(fr. 74); but the preponderance of fire causes death as
much as that of water. It is a very different death,
however, and wins “greater portions” for those who
die it (fr. 101). Apparently those who fall in battle

¢
Ϊ

172 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

share their lot (fr. 102). We have no fragment which
tells us directly what it is, but the class of utterances we
are about to look at next leaves little doubt on the
subject. Those who die the fiery and not the watery
death, become, in fact, gods, though in a different sense
from that in which the one Wisdom is god. It is
probable that the corrupt fragment 123 refers to this
unexpected fate (fr. 122) that awaits men when they die. |

Further, just as summer and winter are one, and
necessarily reproduce one another by their “opposite
tension,” so do life and death. They, too, are one, we
are told; and so are youth and age (fr. 78). It follows
that the soul will be now living and now dead ; that it
will only turn to fire or water, as the case may be, to
recommence once more its unceasing upward and
downward path. The soul that has died from excess
of moisture sinks down to earth; but from the earth
comes water, and from water is once more exhaled a
soul (fr. 68). So, too, we are told (fr. 67) that gods
and men are really one. They live each others’ life,
and die each others’ death. Those mortals that die
the fiery death become immortal, they become the
guardians of the quick and the dead (fr. 123) ;? and

1 The popular word is used for the sake of its paradoxical effect.
Strictly speaking, they are all mortal from one point of view and immortal
from another.

2 We need not hesitate to ascribe to Herakleitos the view that the dead
become guardian demons of the living; it appears already in Hesiod,
Works and Days, 121, and the Orphic communities had popularised it.
Rohde, Psyche (pp. 442 sqq.), refused to admit that Herakleitos believed
the soul survived after death. Strictly speaking, it is no doubt an
inconsistency ; but I believe, with Zeller and Diels, that it is one of a kind
we may well admit. Many thinkers have spoken of a personal immortality,
though there was really no room for it in their systems. It is worthy of
note in this connexion that the first argument which Plato uses to
establish the doctrine of immortality in the Paedo is just the Herakleitean
parallelism of life and death with sleeping and waking.

sl 3 OO ΤΤΜΜΨρΠ ---τ-τττττπἩ
ἫΝ ᾿

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 173

those immortals become mortal in their turn, Every-
thing is really the death of something else (fr. 64).
The living and the dead are always changing places
(fr. 78), like the pieces on a child’s draught-board
(fr. 79), and this applies not only to the souls that
have become water, but to those that have become fire
and are now guardian spirits. The real weariness is
f . . 7
% tinuance in the same state (fr. 82), and the real rest,
is change (fr. $3). Rest in any other sense is ἡ
tantamount to dissolution (fr. 84). So they too are
born once more. MHerakleitos estimated the duration
of the cycle which preserves the balance of life and
death as thirty years, the shortest time in which a man
may become a grandfather (frs. 87-89) .”

76. Let us turn now to the world. Diogenes tells The day ana
us that fire was kept up by the bright vapours from land beech
and sea, and moisture by the dark.2 What are these
“dark” vapours which increase the moist element? If
we remember the “ Air” of Anaximenes, we shall be
inclined to regard them as darkness itself. We know
that the idea of darkness as privation of light is not
natural to the unsophisticated mind. We sometimes
hear even now of darkness “thick enough to cut with
a knife.” I suppose, then, that Herakleitos believed

1 These fragments are quoted by Plotinos, Iamblichos, and Noumenios
in this very connexion (see R. P. 46 c), and it does not seem to me possible
to hold, with Rohde, that they had no grounds for so interpreting them.
They knew the context and we do not.

3 Plut. def. orac. 415 d, ἔτη τριάκοντα ποιοῦσι τὴν γενεὰν καθ᾽ Ἡράκλειτον,
ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ γεννῶντα παρέχει τὸν ἐξ αὑτοῦ γεγεννημένον ὁ γεννήσας.
Philo, fr. Harris, p. 20, δυνατὸν ἐν τριακοστῷ ἔτει αὖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον πάππον
γενέσθαι κιτ.λ. Censorinus, de die nat. 17, 2, ““Βος enim tempus (triaginta
annos) genean vocari Heraclitus auctor est, quia ovdzs aetatis in eo sit spatio ;
orbem autem vocat aetatis, dum natura ab sementi humana ad sementim
revertitur.”” The words ογδὲς aefatis seem to mean αἰῶνος κύκλος, ‘ the circle

of life.” Ifso, we may compare the Orphic κύκλος γενέσεως.
3. Diog. ix. 9 (R. P. 39 b).

174 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

night and winter to be produced by the rise of dark-
ness from earth and sea,—he saw, of course, that the
valleys were dark before the hill-tops,—and that this
darkness, being moist, so increased the watery element
as to put out the sun’s light. This, however, destroys
the power of darkness itself. It can no longer rise
upwards unless the sun gives it motion, and so it
becomes possible for a fresh sun (fr. 32) to be kindled,
and to nourish itself at the expense of the moist
element for a time. But it can only be for a time.
The sun, by burning up the bright vapour, deprives
himself of nourishment, and the dark vapour once more
gets the upper hand. It is in this sense that “ day and
night are one” (fr. 35). Each implies the other, and
they are therefore to be regarded as merely two sides
of the one, in which alone their true ground of explana-
tion is to be found (fr. 36).

Summer and winter were easily to be explained in
the same way. We know that the “turnings” of the
sun were a subject of interest in those days, and it was
natural for Herakleitos to see in its retreat further to
the south the gradual advance of the moist element,
caused by the heat of the sun itself. This, however,
diminishes the power of the sun to cause evaporation,
and so it must return to the north once more that it
may supply itself with nourishment. Such was, at any
rate, the Stoic doctrine on the subject and that it
comes from Herakleitos seems to be proved by its

1 See Kleanthes, fr. 29, Pearson, ὠκεανὸς δ᾽ ἐστὶ «καὶ ὙῆΣ ἧς τὴν ἀναθυ-
μίασιν ἐπινέμεται (ὁ ἥλιος). Cf. Cic. V.D. iii. 37: ‘*Quid enim? non eisdem
vobis placet omnem ignem pastus indigere nec permanere ullo modo posse,
nisi alitur : ali autem solem, lunam, reliqua astra aquis, alia dulcibus (from
the earth), alia marinis ? eamque causam Cleanthes adfert cur se sol referat
nec longius progrediatur solstitiali orbi itemque brumali, ne longius discedat
a cibo.”

— oa ΝΟ νὼ. ν.. ον

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 175

occurrence in the Περὶ διαίτης. It seems impossible to
refer the following sentence to any other source :—

And in turn each (fire and water) prevails and is prevailed
over to the greatest and least degree that is possible. For
neither can prevail altogether for the following reasons. If fire
advances towards the utmost limit of the water, its nourish-
ment fails it. It retires, then, to a place where it can get
nourishment. And if water advances towards the utmost limit
of the fire, movement fails it. At that point, then, it stands
still ; and, when it has come to a stand, it has no longer power
to resist, but is consumed as nourishment for the fire that falls
upon it.. For these reasons neither can prevail altogether.
But if at any time either should be in any way overcome,
then none of the things that exist would be as they are now.
So long as things are as they are, fire and water will always be
too, and neither will ever fail.+

7 7. Herakleitos spoke also of a longer period, which cad Great
is identified with the “Great Year,’ and is variously
described as lasting 18,000 and 10,800 years.2 We
have no definite statement, however, of what process
Herakleitos supposed to take place in the Great Year.

We have seen that the period of 36,000 years was, in
all probability, Babylonian, and was that of the revolu-
tion which produces the precession of the equinoxes.*

1 For the Greek text of this passage, see below, p. 183, n. 1. Fredrichs
allows that it is from the same source as that quoted above (p. 169), and,
as that comes from Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3, he denies the Herakleitean origin of
this too. He has not taken account of the fact that it gives the Stoic
doctrine, which raises a presumption in favour of that being Herakleitean.
If I could agree with Fredrichs’ theory, I should still say that the present
passage was a Herakleitean interpolation in the Phystker rather than that
the other was an interpolation from the Phystker in the Herakleitean section.
As it is, I find no difficulty in believing that both passages give the
Herakleitean doctrine, though it becomes mixed up with other theories in
the sequel. See p. 167, n. 2.

2 Aet. ii. 32, 3, Ἡράκλειτος ἐκ μυρίων ὀκτακισχιλίων ἐνιαυτῶν ἡλιακῶν
(τὸν μέγαν ἐνιαυτὸν εἶναι), ἘΑρονεοηα, de die nat. 11, Heraclitus et Linus,
XDCccc.

8 See Introd. § XII. p. 25, ἢ. 2.

176 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Now 18,000 years is just half that period, a fact which
may be connected with Herakleitos’s way of dividing
all cycles into an “upward and downward path.” It is
not at all likely, however, that Herakleitos, who held
with Xenophanes that the sun was “new every day,”
would trouble himself about the precession of the
equinoxes, and we seem forced to assume that he
gave some new application to the traditional period.
The Stoics, or some of them, held that the Great Year
was the period between one world-conflagration and
the next. They were careful, however, to make it a
good deal longer than Herakleitos did, and, in any
case, we are not entitled without more ado to credit
him with the theory of a general conflagration.. We
must try first, if possible, to interpret the Great Year
on the analogy of the shorter periods discussed
already.

Now we have seen that a generation is the shortest
time in which a man can become a grandfather, it is
the period of the upward or downward path of the soul,
and the most natural interpretation of the longer period
would surely be that it represents the time taken by a
“measure” of the fire in the world to travel on the
downwatd path to earth or return to fire once more by
the upward path. Plato certainly implies that such a
parallelism between the periods of man and the world

1 For the Stoic doctrine, cf. Nemesios, de mat. hom. 38 (R. P. 4
Mr. Adam allowed that no destruction of the world or conflagratio
marked the end of Plato’s year, but he declined to draw what seems to me
the natural inference that the connexion between the two things belongs to
a later age, and should not, therefore, be ascribed to Herakleitos in the
absence of any evidence that he did so connect them. Nevertheless,
his treatment of these questions in the second volume of his edition of
the Republic, pp. 302 sqq., must form the basis of all further discussion on
the subject. It has certainly helped me to put the view which he rejects
(p. 303, n. 9) in what I hope will be found a more convincing form.

-_ ΝΣ νον «ον νὰ
HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 177

was recognised,’ and this receives a curious confirmation
from a passage in Aristotle, which is usually supposed
to refer to the doctrine of a periodic conflagration. He
is discussing the question whether the “heavens,” that
is to say, what he calls the “ first heaven,” is eternal or
.not, and he naturally enough, from his own point of
view, identifies this with the Fire of Herakleitos. He
quotes him along with Empedokles as holding that the
“heavens” are alternately as they are now and in some
other state, one of passing away; and he goes on to
point out that this is not really to say they pass away,
any more than it would be to say that a man ceases to
be, if we said that he turned from boy to man and then
~ from man to boy again.? It is surely clear that this is -
a reference to the parallel between the generation and
the Great Year, and, if so, the ordinary interpretation of
the passage must be wrong. It is true that it is not
quite consistent with the theory to suppose that a
“measure” of Fire could preserve its identity through-
out the whole of its upward and downward path ; but
it is exactly the same inconsistency that we have felt
bound to recognise with regard to the continuance
of individual souls, a fact which is really in favour
of our interpretation. It should be added that, while
18,000 is half 36,000, 10,800 is 360 x 30, which

1 This is certainly the general sense of the parallelism between the
periods of the ἀνθρώπειον and the θεῖον γεννητόν, however we may under-

nd the details. See Adam, Repudiic, vol. ii. pp. 288 sqq.

2 Arist. de Caelo, A, 10. 279 Ὁ 14, οἱ δ᾽ ἐναλλὰξ ὁτὲ μὲν οὕτως ὁτὲ δὲ
ἄλλως ἔχειν φθειρόμενον, . . . ὥσπερ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς ὁ ᾿Ακραγαντῖνος καὶ
Ἡράκλειτος ὁ ᾿Εφέσιος. Aristotle points out that this really amounts only
to saying that it is eternal and changes its form, ὥσπερ εἴ τις ἐκ παιδὸς ἄνδρα
γιγνόμενον καὶ ἐξ ἀνδρὸς παῖδα ὁτὲ μὲν φθείρεσθαι, ὁτὲ δ᾽ εἶναι οἴοιτο (280 a
14). The point of the reference to Empedokles will appear from de Gen.
Corr. B, 6. 334 a 1 sqq. What Aristotle finds fault with in both theories is
that they do not regard the substance of the heavens as something outside
the upward and downward motion of the elements.

12

178 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

would make each generation a day in the Great
Year.’
Did Hera- \J 78. Most modern writers, however, ascribe to

kleitos teach Σ 3 ba :
a general Herakleitos the doctrine of a periodical conflagration or

conflagration? eemiowors, to use the Stoic term.? That this is incon-
sistent with the theory, as we have interpreted it, is
obvious, and is indeed admitted by Zeller. To his
paraphrase of the statement of Plato quoted above
(p. 159) he adds the words: “ Herakleitos did not intend
to retract this principle in the doctrine of a periodic
change in the constitution of. the world; if the two
doctrines ‘are not compatible, it is a contradiction which
he has not observed.” Now, it is in itself quite likely
that there were contradictions in, the discourse of
Herakleitos, but it is very unlikely that there was this
particular one. In the first place, it is a contradiction
of the central idea of his system, the thought that pos-
sessed his whole mind (§ 67), and we can only admit
the possibility of that, if the evidence for it should
prove irresistible. In the second place, such an inter-
pretation destroys the whole point of Plato’s contrast
between Herakleitos and Empedokles (§ 68), which is
just that, while Herakleitos said the One was always
many, and the Many always one, Empedokles ‘said the
All was many and one by turns, © Zeller’s interpretation

obliges us, then, to suppose that Herakleitos flatly con-
tradicted his own discovery without noticing it, and
that Plato, in discussing this very discovery, was also
blind to the contradiction.®

1 This is practically Lassalle’s view of the Great Year, except that he
commits the anachronism of speaking of ‘‘atoms” of fire instead of
ἐς measures.”

2 Schleiermacher and Lassalle are notable exceptions. Zeller, Diels,
and Gomperz are all positive that Herakleitos believed in the éxrvpwots.

3 In his fifth edition (p. 699) Zeller seems to feel this last difficulty ; for

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 179

Nor is there anything in Aristotle to set against
Plato’s emphatic statement. We have .seen that the
passage in which he speaks of him along with
Empedokles as holding that the heavens were
alternately in one condition and in another refers not
to the world in general, but to fire, which Aristotle
identified with the substance of his own “ first heaven.” ?
It is also quite consistent with our interpretation when
he says that all things at one time or another become
fire. This does not necessarily mean that they all
become fire at the same time, but is merely a statement
of the undoubted Herakleitean doctrine of the upward
and downward path.”

The only clear statements to the effect that
Herakleitos taught the doctrine of a general conflagra-
tion are posterior to the rise of Stoicism. It is
unnecessary to enumerate them, as there is no doubt
about their meaning. The Christian apologists too
were interested in the idea of a final conflagration, and
reproduce the Stoic view. The curious thing, however,
is that there was a difference of opinion on the subject

he now says: ‘‘ It is a contradiction which he, and which probably Plato too
(und den wahrscheinlich auch Plato) has not observed.” This seems to me
still less arguable. Plato may or may not be mistaken ; but he makes the
perfectly definite statement that Herakleitos says del, while Empedokles
says ἐν μέρει. The Ionian Muses are called συντονώτεραι and the Sicilian
μαλακώτεραι just because the latter ‘‘ lowered the pitch” (ἐχάλασαν) of the
doctrine that this is always so (τὸ del ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχειν).

1 See above, p. 177, ἢ. 2.

2 Phys. T 5, 205 a 3 (Aer. K, το. 1067 a 4), ὥσπερ Ἡράκλειτός φησιν
ἅπαντα γίνεσθαί wore wip. Even in his fifth edition (p. 691) Zeller
translates this es werde alles dereinst su Feuer werden; but that would
require γενήσεσθαι. Nor is there anything in his suggestion that ἅπαντα
(‘not merely πάντα) implies that all things become fire at once. In
Aristotle’s day, there was no distinction of meaning between πᾶς and ἅπας.
Even if he had said σύμπαντα, we could not press it. What is really
moticeable is the present infinitive γίνεσθαι, which surely suggests a con-
tinuous process, not a series of conflagrations.

180 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

even among the Stoics. In one place, Marcus Aurelius
says: “So that all these things are taken up into
the Reason of the universe, whether by a periodical
conflagration or a renovation effected by external

”1 Indeed, there were some who said there

exchanges,
was no general conflagration at all in Herakleitos, “I
hear all that,” Plutarch makes one of his personages
say, “from many people, and I see the Stoic conflagra-
tion spreading over the poems of Hesiod, just as it
does over the writings of Herakleitos and the verses of

”2 We see from this that the question was

Orpheus.
debated, and we should therefore expect that any state-
ment of Herakleitos which could settle it would be
quoted over and over again. It is highly significant
that not a single quotation of the kind can be produced.

On the contrary, the absence of anything to show
that Herakleitos spoke of a general conflagration only
becomes more patent when we turn to the few fragments
which are supposed to prove it. The favourite is fr. 24,
where we are told that Herakleitos said Fire was Want
and Surfeit. That is just in his manner, and it has a
perfectly intelligible meaning on our interpretation,
which is further confirmed by fr. 36. On the other.
hand, it seems distinctly artificial to understand the

1 Marcus Aurelius, x. 7, ὥστε καὶ ταῦτα ἀναληφθῆναι εἰς τὸν τοῦ ὅλου
λόγον, εἴτε κατὰ περίοδον ἐκπυρουμένου, εἴτε ἀιδίοις ἀμοιβαῖς ἀνανεουμένου..
The ἀμοιβαί are specifically Herakleitean, and the statement is the more
remarkable as Marcus elsewhere follows the usual Stoic interpretation.

2 Plut. de def. orac. 415 f, καὶ ὁ Κλεόμβροτος, ᾿Ακούῳ ταῦτ᾽, ἔφη, πολλῶν
kal ὁρῶ τὴν Στωικὴν ἐκπύρωσιν ὥσπερ τὰ Ἡρακλείτου καὶ ᾿Ορφέως
ἐπινεμομένην ἔπη οὕτω καὶ τὰ Ἡσιόδου καὶ συνεξάπτουσαν. As Zeller admits.
(p. 693 n.), this proves that some opponents of the Stoic ἐκπύρωσις tried
to withdraw the support of Herakleitos from it. Could they have done
so if Herakleitos had said anything about it, or would not some one
have produced a decisive quotation? "We may be sure that, if any one

had, it would have been reiterated ad nauseam, for the indestructibility of
the world was one of the great questions of the day.

oe J ᾿. Ce

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 181

Surfeit as referring to the fact that fire has burnt every-

thing else up, and still more so to interpret Want as

meaning that fire, or most of it, has turned into a

world. The next is fr. 26, where we read that fire in

its advance will judge and convict all things. There

is nothing in this, however, to suggest that fire will

judge all things at once rather than in turn, and,

indeed, the phraseology reminds us of the advance of

fire and water which we have seen reason for attribut-

ing to Herakleitos, but which is expressly said to be

limited to a certain maximum.' These appear to be

the only passages which the Stoics and the Christian

apologists could discover, and, whether our interpreta-
tion of them is right or wrong, it is surely obvious that
they cannot bear the weight of their conclusion, and
that there was certainly nothing more definite to be
found.

It is much easier to find fragments which are on
the face of them inconsistent with a general conflagra-
tion. The “measures” of fr. 20 and fr. 29 must be
the same thing, and they must surely be interpreted
in the light of fr. 23. If this be so, fr. 20, and more
especially fr. 29, directly contradict the idea of a
general conflagration. “The sun will not overstep his
measures.”2 Secondly, the metaphor of “exchange,”
which is applied to the transformations of fire in fr. 22,
points in the same direction. When gold is given in
exchange for wares and wares for gold, the sum or
“measure” of each remains constant, though they
change owners. All the wares and gold do not come

1 Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3, ἐν μέρει δὲ ἑκάτερον κρατεῖ καὶ κρατεῖται ἐς τὸ
μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον ὡς ἀνυστόν.

2 If any one doubts that this is really the meaning of the ‘* measures,”
let him compare the use of the word by Diogenes of Apollonia, fr. 3.

182 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

into the same hands. In the same way, when anything
becomes fire, something of equal amount must cease to
be fire, if the “exchange” is to be a just one; and
that it will be just, we are assured by the watchfulness
of the Erinyes (fr. 29), who see to it that the sun does
not take more than he gives. Of course there is, as we
have seen, a certain variation ; but this is strictly con-
fined within limits, and is compensated in the long run
by a variation in the other direction. Thirdly, fr. 43,
in which Herakleitos blames Homer for desiring the
cessation of strife, is very conclusive. The cessation of
strife would mean that all things should take the
upward or downward path at the same time, and cease
to “run in opposite directions.” If they all took the
upward path, we should have a general conflagration.
Now, if Herakleitos had himself held that this was the
appointment of fate, would he have been likely to
upbraid Homer for desiring so necessary a consumma-
tion?* Fourthly, we note that in fr. 20 it is Ζζδς world,’
and not merely the “ever-living fire,” which is said to
be eternal; and it appears also that its eternity
depends upon the fact that it is always kindling and
always going out in the same “measures,” or that
an encroachment in one direction is compensated by
a subsequent encroachment in the other. Lastly,
Lassalle’s argument from the concluding sentence of
the passage from the Περὶ διαίτης, quoted above, is

1 This is just the argument which Plato uses in the Phaedo (72 c) to
prove the necessity of ἀνταπόδοσις, and the whole series of arguments in that
passage is distinctly Herakleitean in character.

2 However we understand the term κόσμος here, the meaning is the
same. Indeed, if we suppose with Bernays that it means ‘‘ order,” the
argument in the text will be all the stronger. In no sense of the word
could a κόσμος survive the ἐκπύρωσις, and the Stoics accordingly said the
κόσμος was φθαρτός.

~~ » ὩΣ, πῶ ον.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 183

really untouched by Zeller’s objection, that it cannot
be Herakleitean because it implies that all things are
fire and water. It does not imply this, but only that
man, like the heavenly bodies, oscillates between fire
and water; and that is just what Herakleitos taught.
It does not appear either that the measures of earth
varied at all. Now, in this passage we read that
neither fire nor water can prevail completely, and a
very good reason is given for this, a reason too which
is in striking agreement with the other views of
Herakleitos.. And, indeed, it is not easy to see how,
in accordance with these views, the world could ever
recover from a general conflagration if such a thing
were to take place. The whole process depends, so
far as we can see, on the fact that Surfeit is also Want,
or, in other words, that an advance of fire increases the
moist exhalation, while an advance of water deprives |
the fire of the power to cause evaporation. The con-
flagration, though it lasted but for a moment,’ would
destroy the opposite tension on which the rise of a |
new world depends, and then motion would become
impossible.

1 Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3 (see above, p. 167, n. 2), οὐδέτερον γὰρ κρατῆσαι
παντελῶς δύναται διὰ τάδε" τό <re> πῦρ ἐπεξιὸν ἐπὶ τὸ ἔσχατον τοῦ ὕδατος
ἐπιλείπει ἡ τροφή᾽ ἀποτρέπεται οὖν ὅθεν μέλλει τρέφεσθαι" τὸ ὕδωρ τε ἐπεξιὸν
τοῦ πυρὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ἔσχατον, ἐπιλείπει ἡ κίνησις" ἵσταται οὖν ἐν τούτῳ, ὅταν
δὲ στῇ, οὐκέτι ἐγκρατές ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη τῷ ἐμπίπτοντι πυρὶ ἐς τὴν τροφὴν
καταναλίσκεται" οὐδέτερον δὲ διὰ ταῦτα δύναται κρατῆσαι παντελῶς, εἰ δέ
ποτε κρατηθείη καὶ ὁπότερον, οὐδὲν ἂν εἴη τῶν νῦν ἐόντων ὥσπερ ἔχει νῦν"
οὕτω δὲ ἐχόντων ἀεὶ ἔσται τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ οὐδέτερον οὐδαμὰ ἐπιλείψει.

2 In his note on fr. 66 (=26 Byw.), Diels seeks to minimise the difficulty
of the ἐκπύρωσις by saying that it is only a little one, and can last but a
moment; but the contradiction noted above remains all the same. Diels
holds that Herakleitos was ‘‘ dark only in form,” and that “‘ he himself
was perfectly clear as to the sense and scope of his ideas” (Herakleitos,
p. i). To which I would add that he was probably called ‘* the Dark ᾿

just because the Stoics sometimes found it hard to read their own ideas
into his words.

Strife and
‘* harmony.”

184 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

79. We are now in a position to understand more
clearly the law of strife or opposition which manifests
itself in the “upward and downward path.” At any
given moment, each of the three forms of matter, Fire,
Water, and Earth, is made up of two equal portions,—
subject, of course, to the oscillation described above,—
one of which is taking the upward and the other the
downward path. Now, it is just the fact that the
two halves of everything are being “drawn in opposite
directions,” this “opposite tension,” that “keeps things
together,’ and maintains them in an equilibrium which
can only be disturbed temporarily and within certain
limits. It thus forms the “ hidden attunement” of the
universe (fr. 47), though, in another aspect of it, it is
Strife. Bernays has pointed out that the word ἁρμονία

_ meant originally “structure,” and the illustration of the

bow and the lyre shows that this idea was present.
On the other hand, that taken from the concord of
high and low notes shows that the musical sense of the
word, namely, an octave, was not wholly absent. . As
to the “ bow and the lyre” (fr. 45), I think that Professor
Campbell has best brought out the point of the simile.
“As the arrow leaves the string,” he says, “the hands
are pulling opposite ways to each other, and to the
different parts of the bow (cf. Plato, Rep. 4. 439); and
the sweet note of the lyre is due to a similar tension
and retention. The secret of the universe is the same.” *
War, then, is the father and king of all things, in the

1 Campbell’s Zheaezetus (2nd ed.), p. 244. See above, p. 150, ἢ. 2.
Bernays explained the phrase as referring to the skage of the bow and lyre,
but this is much less likely. Wilamowitz’s interpretation is substantially
the same as Campbell’s. ‘‘ Es ist mit der Welt wie mit dem Bogen, den
man auseinanderzieht, damit er zusammenschnellt, wie mit der Saite, die
man ihrer Spannung entgegenziehen muss, damit sie klingt ” (Leseduch, ii.

p- 129).

>

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 185

world as in human society (fr. 44) ; and Homer’s wish
that strife might cease was really a prayer for the
destruction of the world (fr. 43).

We know from Philo that Herakleitos supported
his theory of the attainment of harmony through strife
by a multitude of examples; and, as it happens, some
of these can be recovered. There is a remarkable
agreement between a passage of this kind in the pseudo-
Aristotelian treatise, entitled Zhe Kosmos, and the
Hippokratean work to which we have already referred.
That the authors of both drew from the same source,
namely, Herakleitos, is probable in itself, and is made
practically certain by the fact that this agreement
extends in part to the Letters of Heraklettos, which,
though spurious, were certainly composed by some one
who had access to the original work. The argument
was that men themselves act just in the same way as
Nature, and it is therefore surprising that they do not
recognise the laws by which she works. The painter
produces his harmonious effects by the contrast of
colours, the musician by that of high and low notes.
“Tf one were to make all things alike, there would
be no delight in them.” There are many similar
examples in the Hippokratean tract, some of which
must certainly come from Herakleitos ; but it is not
easy to separate them from the later additions,’

1 See on all this Patin’s Quellenstudien 2u Heraklit (1881). The
sentence (Περὲ διαίτης, i. 5): καὶ τὰ μὲν πρήσσουσιν οὐκ οἴδασιν, ἃ δὲ οὐ
πρήσσουσι δοκέουσιν εἰδέναι" καὶ τὰ μὲν ὁρέουσιν οὐ γινώσκουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως
αὐτοῖσι πάντα γίνεται. . . Kal ἃ βούλονται καὶ ἃ μὴ βούλονται, has the
true Herakleitean ring. This, too, can hardly have had another author :
** They trust to their eyes rather than to their understanding, though their
eyes are not fit to judge even of the things that are seen. But I speak
these things from understanding.” These words are positively grotesque in

the mouth of the medical compiler ; but we are accustomed to hear such
things from the Ephesian. Other examples which may be Herakleitean are

ς

Correlation of
opposites.

4

186 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

80. There are a number of Herakleitean fragments
which form a class by themselves, and are among the
most striking of all the utterances that have come
down to us. Their common characteristic is, that
they assert in the most downright way the identity of
various things which are usually regarded as opposites.
The clue to their meaning is to be found in the account
already given of the assertion that day and night are
one. We have seen that Herakleitos meant to say,
not that day was night or that night was day, but
that they were two sides of the same process, namely,
the oscillation of the “measures” of fire and water,
and that neither would be possible without the other.
Any explanation that can be given of night will also be
an explanation of day, and vwzce versa; for it will be
an account of that which is common to both, and

manifests itself now as one and now as the other.

Moreover, it is just because it has manifested itself in
the one form that it must next appear in the other ;
for this is required by the law of compensation or
Justice.

This is only a particular application of the universal
principle that the primary fire is one even in its
division. It itself is, even in its unity, both surfeit
and want, war and peace (fr. 36). In other words, the
“satiety ἢ which makes fire pass into other forms, which
makes it seek “rest in change” (frs. 82, 83), and “ hide
itself” (fr. 10) in the “ hidden attunement ” of opposition,
is only one side of the process. The other is the
“want” which leads it to consume the bright vapour as
fuel. The upward path is nothing without the down-

the image of the two men sawing wood—‘‘ one pushes, the other ‘sual
—and the illustration from the art of writing.

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 187

ward (fr. 69). If either were to cease, the other would
cease too, and the world would disappear ; for it takes
both to make an apparently stable reality,

All other utterances of the kind are to be explained
in the same way. If there were no cold, there would
be no heat ; for a thing can only grow warm if, and in
so far as, itis already cold. And the same thing applies
to the opposition of wet and dry (fr. 39). These, it
will be observed, are just the two primary oppositions
of Anaximander, and Herakleitos is showing that the
war between them is really peace, for it is the common
element in them (fr. 62) which appears as strife, and
that very strife is justice, and not, as Anaximander had
taught, an injustice which they commit one against the
other, and which must be expiated by a reabsorption of
both in their common ground.' The strife itself is the
common ground (fr. 62), and is eternal.

The most startling of these sayings is that which
affirms that good and evil are the same (fr. 57). This
does not mean in the least, however, that good is evil
or that evil is good, but simply that they are the two
inseparable halves of one and the same thing. <A
thing can become good only in so far as it is already
evil, and evil only in so far as it is already good, and
everything depends on the contrast. The illustration
given in. fr. 58 shows this clearly. Torture, one would
say, was an evil, and yet it is made a good by the
presence of another evil, namely, disease; as is shown
by the fact that surgeons expect a fee for inflicting
it upon their patients. Justice, on the other hand,
which is a good, would be altogether unknown were
it not for the existence of injustice, which is an evil

1 Chap. I. § 16.

id

188 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

( 60). And that is why it is not good for men to
get everything they wish (fr. 104). Just as the cessa-
tion of strife in the world would mean its destruction,

so the disappearance of hunger, disease, and weariness

would mean the disappearance of satisfaction, health,
and rest.

f

‘t

This leads to a theory of relativity which prepares
he way for the doctrine of Protagoras, that “ Man is
he measure of all things.” ἢ _ Sea-water is good for fish

and bad for men (fr. 52), and so with many other

t

hings. At the same time, Herakleitos is not a believer

in absolute relativity. The process of the world is not
merely a circle, but an “upward and downward path.”
At the upper end, where the two paths meet, we have

t

he pure fire, in which, as there is no separation, there

is no relativity. We are told expressly that, while

t

Ο man some things are evil and some things are good, -

all things are good to God (fr.61). Now by God there
is no doubt that Herakleitos meant Fire. He also
calls it the “one wise,” and perhaps said that it

“knows all things.” There can hardly be any question

t

hat what he meant to say was that in it the opposi-

tion and relativity which are universal in the world
disappear. It is doubtless to this that frs. 96, 97, and
98 refer.

The Wise.
i

81. Herakleitos speaks of “ wisdom” or the “ wise ”
n two senses. We have seen already that he said

wisdom was “something apart from everything else”

1 Plato’s exposition of the relativity of knowledge in the 7heaetetus (152

ἃ sqq.) can hardly go back to Herakleitos himself, but is meant to show
how Herakleiteanism might naturally give rise to such a doctrine. If the
soul is a stream and things are a stream, then of course knowledge is relative.
Very possibly the later Herakleiteans had worked out the theory in this
direction, but in the days of Herakleitos himself the problem of know-
ledge had not yet arisen. ;

HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 189

(fr. 18), meaning by it the perception of the unity of the
_ many ; and he also applies the term to that unity itself
| regarded as the “ thought that directs the course of all
things.” This is synonymous with the pure fire which
is not differentiated into two parts, one taking the
upward and the other the downward path. That alone
has wisdom; the partial things we see have not. We
ourselves are only wise in so far as we are fiery (fr. 74).
i 82. With certain reservations, Herakleitos was pre- Theology.
pared to call the one Wisdom by the name of Zeus.
“Such, at least, appears to be the meaning of fr. 65.
What these reservations were, it is easy to guess. It is
not, of course, to be pictured in the form of aman. In
saying this, Herakleitos would only have been repeating
what had already been laid down by Anaximander and
Xenophanes. | He agrees further with Xenophanes in
. holding that this “god,” if it is to be called so, is one;
but his polemic against popular religion was directed
rather against the rites and ceremonies themselves
than their mere mythological outgrowth. He gives a
list (fr. 124) of some of the most characteristic
religious figures of his time, and the context in
which the fragment is quoted shows that he in some
way threatened them with the wrath to come. He
comments upon the absurdity of praying to images
(fr. 126), and the strange idea that blood-guiltiness can
be washed out by the shedding of blood (fr. 130). He
seems also to have said that it was absurd to celebrate
the worship of Dionysos by cheerful and licentious
ceremonies, while Hades was propitiated by gloomy rites
(fr. 127). According to the mystic doctrine itself, the
two were really one; and the one Wisdom ought to be
worshipped in its integrity.

Ethics of
Herakleitos.

190 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The few fragments which deal with theology and
religion hardly suggest to us that Herakleitos was in
sympathy with the religious revival of the time, and yet
we have been asked to consider his system “in the
light of the idea of the mysteries.” ?
is called to the fact that he was “ king” of Ephesos,
that is, priest of the branch of the Eleusinian mysteries

Our attention

established in that city, which was also connected in
some way with the worship of Artemis or the Great
Mother.” These statements may be true; but, even if
they are, what follows? We ought surely to have
learnt from Lobeck by this time that there was no
“idea” in the mysteries at all; and on this point
the results of recent anthropological research have
abundantly confirmed those of philological and
historical inquiry.

83. The moral teaching of Herakleitos has some-
times been regarded as an anticipation of the “ common-
sense” theory of Ethics.2 The “common” upon which
Herakleitos insists is, nevertheless, something very
different from common sense, for which, indeed, he
had the greatest possible contempt (fr. PET). aes
in fact, his strongest objection to “the many,” that

they live each in his own world (fr. 95), as if they

had a private wisdom of their own (fr. 92).; and public
opinion is therefore just the opposite of “the common.”

The Ethics of Herakleitos are to be regarded as
a corollary of his anthropological and cosmological
views. Their chief requirement is that we keep our

1 E. Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraklit von Ephesus im Lichte der
Mysterienidee (1886).

2 Antisthenes (the writer of Successtons) ap. Diog. ix. 6 (R. P. 31).
Cf. Strabo, xiv. p. 633 (R. P. 31 b).

3 Kostlin, Gesch. d. Ethik, i. pp. 160 544.

i) ᾿ is
HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS IgI

souls dry, and thus assimilate them to the one Wisdom,
which is fire. That is what is really “common,” and
the greatest fault is to act like men asleep (fr. 94),
that is, by letting our souls grow moist, to cut our-
selves off from the fire in the world. We do not
know what were the consequences which Herakleitos
deduced from his rule that we must hold fast to
what is common, but it is easy to see what their
nature must have been. The wise man would not try
to secure good without its correlative evil. He would
not seek for rest without exertion, nor expect to enjoy
contentment without first suffering discontent. He
would not complain that he had to take the bad with
the good, but would consistently look at things as a
whole.

Herakleitos prepared the way for the Stoic world-
state by comparing “the common” to the laws of a
city. And these are even more than a type of the
divine law: they are imperfect embodiments of it.
They cannot, however, exhaust it altogether; for in
all human affairs there is an element of relativity
(fr. 91). “Man is a baby compared to God” (fr. 97).
Such as they are, however, the city must fight for
them as for its walls; and, if it has the good fortune
to possess a citizen with a dry soul, he is worth ten
thousand (fr. 113); for in him alone is “the common”
embodied.

τ CHAPTER IV

PARMENIDES OF ELEA

Life. 84. PARMENIDES, son of Pyres, was a citizen of
Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a colony founded in Ojinotria
by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.c.1 Diogenes
tells us that he “flourished” in ΟἹ. LXIX. (504-500
B.C.) and this was doubtless the date given by
Apollodoros.2, On the other hand, Plato says that
Parmenides came to Athens in his sixty-fifth year,
accompanied by Zeno, and conversed with Sokrates,
who was then quite young. Now Sokrates was just
over seventy when he was put to death in 399 B.C.;
and therefore, if we suppose him to have been an
ephebos, that is, from eighteen to twenty years old,
at the time of his interview with Parmenides, we get
451-449 BC. as the date of that event. I do not
hesitate to accept Plato’s statement,’ especially as

1 Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111). For the foundation of Elea, see Herod. i.

165 sqq. It was on the coast of Lucania, south of Poseidonia (Paestum).

2 Diog. ix. 23(R. P..111). Cf Diels, Rhein. Mus. xxxi. p. 34; and
Jacoby, pp. 231 sqq.

3 Plato, Parm. 127 b(R. P. 111d). There are, as Zeller has shown, a
certain number of anachronisms in Plato, but there is not one of this
character. In the first place, we have exact figures as to the ages of
Parmenides and Zeno, which imply that the latter was twenty-five years
younger than the former, not forty as Apollodoros said. In the second
place, Plato refers to this meeting in two other places (722. 183 e 7 and
Soph. 217 ¢ 5), which do not seem to be mere references to the dialogue

192

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 193.

we have independent evidence of the visit of Zeno
to Athens, where Perikles is said to have “ heard”
him.! The date given by Apollodoros, on the other
hand, depends solely on that of the foundation of Elea,
which he had adopted as the floruzt of Xenophanes.
Parmenides is born in that year, just as Zeno is born
in the year when Parmenides “flourished.” Why any
one should prefer these transparent combinations to
_ the testimony of Plato, I am at a loss to understand,
though it is equally a mystery why Apollodoros him-
self should have overlooked such precise data.

We have seen already (§ 55) that Aristotle
mentions a statement which made Parmenides the
disciple of Xenophanes; but the value of this testi-
mony is diminished by the doubtful way in which
he speaks, and it is more than likely that he is
only referring to what Plato says in the Sophist.’
It is, we also saw, very improbable that Xenophanes
founded the school of Elea, though it is quite possible
he visited that city. He tells us himself that, in his
ninety-second year, he was still wandering up and down
(fr. 8). At that time Parmenides would be well advanced
in life. And we must not overlook the statement
of Sotion, preserved to us by Diogenes, that, though
Parmenides .“ heard ” Xenophanes, he did not “ follow”
him. According to this account, our philosopher was
the “associate” of a Pythagorean, Ameinias, son of
Diochaitas, “a poor but noble man to whom he
afterwards built a shrine as to a hero.” It was

entitled Parmenides. No parallel can be quoted for an anachronism so
glaring and deliberate as this would be. E. Meyer (Gesch. des Alterth. iv.
§ 509, Aum.) also regards the meeting of Sokrates and Parmenides as
historical.
1 Plut. Per. 4, 3. See below, p. 358, ἢ. 2.
2 See above, Chap. II. p. 140, ἢ. 2.

&D

13

194 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Ameinias and not Xenophanes that “converted ”
Parmenides to the philosophic life.’ This does not
read like an invention, and we must remember that the
Alexandrians had information about the history of
Southern Italy which we have not. The shrine erected
by Parmenides would still be there in later days, like
the grave of Pythagoras at Metapontion. It should
also be mentioned that Strabo describes Parmenides
and Zeno as Pythagoreans, and that Kebes talks of a
“Parmenidean and Pythagorean way of life.”* Zeller
explains all this by supposing that, like Empedokles,
Parmenides approved of and followed the Pythagorean
mode of life without adopting the Pythagorean system.
It is possibly true that Parmenides believed in a
“philosophic life” (§ 35), and that he got the idea.
from the Pythagoreans; but there is very little
trace, either in his writings or in what we are told
about him, of his having been in any way affected
by the religious side of Pythagoreanism. The writing
of Empedokles is obviously modelled upon that of
Parmenides, and yet there is an impassable gulf between
the two. The touch of charlatanism, which is so
strange a feature in the copy, is altogether absent
from the model. It is true, no doubt, that there
are traces of Orphic ideas in the poem of Parmenides ;

1 Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111), reading ᾿Αμεινίᾳ Διοχαίτα with Diels (Hermes,
XxXxv. p. 197). Sotion, in his Swccesstons, separated Parmenides from
Xenophanes and associated him with the Pythagoreans (Dox. pp. 146,
148, 166).

2 Strabo, vi. I, p. 252 (p. 195, n. 1); Ceb. Zad, 2(R. P. 111c). This
Kebes is not the Kebes of the Phaedo; but he certainly lived some time
before Lucian, who speaks of him as a well-known writer. A Cynic of
the name is mentioned by Athenaios (156d). The statements of Strabo
are of the-greatest value ; for they are based upon historians now lost.

3 ©. Kern in «γε. iii. pp. 173 sqq. We know too little, however, of
the apocalyptic poems of the sixth century B.c. to be sure of the details.
All we can say is that Parmenides has taken the form of his poem from

PAKMENIDES OF ELEA 195

but they are all to be found either in the allegorical
introduction or in the second part of the poem, and
we need not therefore take them very seriously. Now
Parmenides was a western Hellene, and he had
probably been a Pythagorean, so it is not a little
remarkable that he should be so free from the common
tendency of his age and country. It is here, if any-
where, that we may trace the influence of Xenophanes.
As regards his relation to the Pythagorean system, we
shall have something to say later on. At present we
need only note further that, like most of the older
philosophers, he took part in politics ; and Speusippos
recorded that he legislated for his native city. Others

add that the magistrates of Elea made the citizens

swear every year to abide by the laws which Parmenides
had given them.’

85. Parmenides was really the first philosopher to
expound his system in metrical language. As there is
some confusion on this subject, it deserves a few words
of explanation. In writing of Empedokles, Mr. J. A.
Symonds said: “The age in which he lived had not
yet thrown off the form of poetry in philosophical
composition. Even Parmenides had committed his
austere theories to hexameter verse.” Now this is
wrongly put. The earliest philosophers, Anaximander,
Anaximenes, and Herakleitos, all wrote in prose, and
the only Greeks who ever wrote philosophy in verse

some such source. See Diels, ‘‘ Ueber die’ poetischen Vorbilder des
Parmenides” (Beri. Sitzb. 1896), and the Introduction to his Parmenides
Lehrgedicht, pp. 9 544.

1 Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Plut. adv. Col. 1226 a, Παρμενίδης δὲ τὴν
ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα διεκόσμησε νόμοις ἀρίστοις, ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς καθ᾽ ἕκαστον
ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξορκοῦν τοὺς πολίτας ἐμμενεῖν τοῖς Παρμενίδου νόμοις. Strabo, vi.
I. p. 252, (Ἐλέαν) ἐξ ἧς Παρμενίδης καὶ Ζήνων ἐγένοντο ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι.
δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ δι᾽ ἐκείνους καὶ ἔτι πρότερον εὐνομηθῆναι.

The poem.

| ν us i oe

10

15

20

196 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

at all were just these two, Parmenides and Empedokles ;
for Xenophanes was not primarily .a philosopher
any more than Epicharmos. Empedokles copied
Parmenides ; and he, no doubt, was influenced by
Xenophanes and the Orphics. But the thing was an
innovation, and one that did not maintain itself.

The fragments of Parmenides are preserved for the
most part by Simplicius, who fortunately inserted them
in his commentary, because in his time the original
work was already rare.’ I follow the arrangement of
Dein τὡκον

The car that bears me carried me as far as ever my heart
desired, since it brought me and set me on the renowned
way of the goddess, which alone leads the man who knows
through all things.. On that way was I borne along ; for on
it did the wise steeds carry me, drawing my car, and maidens
showed the way. And the axle, glowing in the socket—for
it was urged round by the whirling wheels at each end—
gave forth a sound as of a pipe, when the daughters of the
Sun, hasting to convey me into the light, threw back their
veils from off their faces and left the abode of Night.

There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day,? fitted
above with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone.
They themselves, high in the air, are closed by mighty doors,
and Avenging Justice keeps the keys that fit them. Her did
the maidens entreat with gentle words and cunningly persuade
to unfasten without demur the bolted bars from the gates.
Then, when the doors were thrown back, they disclosed a
wide opening, when their brazen posts fitted with rivets and
nails swung back one after the other. Straight through them,
on the broad way, did the maidens guide the horses and the

1 Simpl. Phys. 144, 25 (R. P. 117). Simplicius, of course, had the
library of the Academy at his command. Diels notes, however, that
Proclus seems to have used a different MS,

2 For these see Hesiod, 7heog. 748.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 197

car, and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took my right
hand in hers, and spake to me these words :

Welcome, O youth, that comest to my abode on the car
that bears thee tended by immortal charioteers! It is no ill
chance, but right and justice that has sent thee forth to
travel on this way. Far, indeed, does it lie from the beaten
track of men! Meet it is that thou shouldst learn all things,
as well the unshaken. heart of well-rounded truth, as the
opinions of mortals in which is no true belief at all. Yet
none the less shalt thou learn these things also,—how they
should have judged that the things which seem to them
are,—as thou goest through all things in thy journey.?

But do thou restrain thy thought from this way of inquiry,
nor let habit by its much experience force thee to cast upon
this way a wandering eye or sounding ear or tongue; but
judge by argument the much disputed proof uttered by me.
There is only one way left that can be spoken of.2... ΚΕ. P.
113.

THE Way ΟΕ TRUTH

(2)

Look steafdastly with thy mind at things though afar as
if they were at hand. ‘Thou canst not cut off what is from
holding fast to what is, neither scattering itself abroad in
order nor coming together. R. P. 118 a.

(3)

It is all one to me where I begin; for I shall come back
again there.

(4, 5)

Come now, I will tell thee—and do thou hearken to my
saying and carry it away—the only two ways of search that
can be thought of. The first, namely, that J? zs, and that it
is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is

1 See below, p. 211, ἢ. 1. .

2 I read μῦθος as in the parallel passage fr. 8 ad init. Diels’s inter-
pretation of θυμὸς ὁδοῖο (the MS. reading here) as ein lebendiger Weg does
not convince me, and the confusion of the two words is fairly common.

25

30

35

4

198 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

5 its companion. The other, namely, that 72 zs mot, and that
it must needs not be,—that, I tell thee, is a path that none can
learn of at all. For thou canst not know what is not—that
is impossible—nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can
be thought and that can Ὀ6.: R. P. 114.

(6)

It needs must be that what can be thought and spoken of
is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for
what is nothing to be.? This is what I bid thee ponder. I
hold thee back from this first way of inquiry, and from this

5 other also, upon which mortals knowing naught wander
two-faced ; for helplessness guides the wandering thought in
their breasts, so that they are borne along stupefied like men
deaf and blind. Undiscerning crowds, in whose eyes it is,
and is not, the same and not the same,? and all things travel
in opposite directions! R. P. στὰς.

(7)

For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not

11 read with Zeller (p. 558 n. 1, Eng. trans. p. 584, ἢ. 1) τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ
νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι. Apart from the philosophical anachronism of
making Parmenides say that ‘‘ thought and being are the same,” it is a
granimatical anachronism to make him use the infinitive (with or without
the article) as the subject of a sentence. On the other hand, he does use
the active infinitive after elvac in the construction where we usually use a
passive infinitive (Monro, ..7. Gr. § 231 sub fin.). Cf. fr. 4, εἰσὶ νοῆσαι, ‘* are
for thinking,” z.e. ‘* can be thought.”

2 The construction here is the same as that explained in the last note.
It is surprising that good scholars should acquiesce in the translation of τὸ
λέγειν τε νοεῖν re as ““ to say and think this.” Then ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι means
‘it can be,” not ““ being is,” and the last phrase should be construed
οὐκ ἔστι μηδὲν (εἷναι).

3 I construe οἷς νενόμισται τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν καὶ οὐ
ταὐτόν. The subject of the infinitives πέλειν καὶ οὐκ εἶναι is the 22, which
has to be supplied also with ἔστιν and οὐκ ἔστιν. This way of taking the
words makes it unnecessary to believe that Parmenides said (τὸ) οὐκ εἶναι
instead of (τὸ) μὴ εἶναι for ‘‘not-being.” There is no difference between
méXew and εἶναι except in rhythmical value.

41 take πάντων as neuter and understand παλίντροπος κέλευθος as
equivalent to the ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω of Herakleitos. I do not think it has
anything to do with the παλίντονος (or maNivrpotos) ἁρμονίη. See Chap.
IIT. p. 150, ἢ. 2.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 199

are; and do thou restrain thy thought from this way of
inquiry. R. P. 116.

(8)

One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that J¢ zs.
In it are very many tokens that what is is uncreated and
indestructible ; for it is complete,! immovable, and without
end. Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now 22 zs, all at
once, a continuous one. For what kind of origin for it wilt
thou look for? Ina what way and from what source could it
have drawn its increase? I shall not let thee say nor think
that it came from what is not; for it can neither be thought

15

nor uttered that anythingis not. And, if it came from nothing, ©

what need could have made it arise later rather than sooner?
Therefore must it either be altogether or be not at all. Nor
will the force of truth suffer aught to arise besides itself from
that which is not.2_ Wherefore, Justice doth not loose her
fetters and let anything come into being or pass away, but
holds it fast. Our judgment thereon depends on this: “ Zs
zt or zs it not?” Surely it is adjudged, as it needs must be,
that we are to set aside the one way as unthinkable and
nameless (for it is no true way), and that the other path is
real and true. How, then, can what zs be going to be in the
future? Or how could it come into being? If it came into
being, it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future.
Thus is becoming extinguished and passing away not to be
heard of. R, P. 117.

Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more *

' T still prefer to read ἔστι γὰρ οὐλομελές with Plutarch (adv. Col.

1114 6). Proklos (2 Parm. 1152, 24) also read οὐλομελές, Simplicius,
who has μουνογενές here, calls the One of Parmenides ὁλομελές elsewhere
(Phys. p. 137, 15). The reading of [Plut.] Strom. 5, μοῦνον μουνογενές
helps to explain the confusion. We have only to suppose that the letters
μην, Ὕ were wfitten above the line in the Academy copy of Parmenides
by some one who had 77%. 31 Ὁ 3 in mind.
. ® Diels formerly read ἔκ πη ἐόντος, ‘from that which in any way is” ;
but he has now reverted to the reading ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος, supposing that the
other horn of the dilemma’has dropped out. In any case, ‘‘ nothing but
what is not can arise from what is not” gives a perfectly good sense.

3 For the difficulties which have been felt about μᾶλλον here, see Diels’s
note. If the word is to be pressed, his interpretation is admissible ; but it

10

LY

15

20

«..

200 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

‘of it in one place than in another, to hinder it from holding
together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what is.

25 Wherefore it is wholly continuous; for what is, is in contact
| with what is.

_ Moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of mighty chains,
without beginning and without end; since coming into being
and passing away have been driven afar, and true belief has
cast them away. It is the same, and it rests in the self-same

30, place, abiding in itself. And thus it remaineth constant in
“its place; for hard necessity keeps it in the bonds of the
‘limit that holds it fast on every side. Wherefore it is not per-
‘mitted to what is to be infinite; for it is in need of nothing ;
' while, if it were infinite, it would stand in need of everything.
R. P. 118.
The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of
35 which the thought exists is the same ;* for you cannot find
thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered.®
And there is not, and never shall be, anything besides what
is, since fate has chained it so as to be whole and immovable.
Wherefore all these things are but names which mortals have
40 given, believing them to be true—coming into being and
passing away, being and not being, change of place and
alteration of bright colour. R. P. 119.
’ Since, then, it has a furthest limit, it is complete on every
side, like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from
45 the centre in every direction; for it cannot be greater or
smaller in one place than in another. For there is no nothing

seems to me that this is simply an instance of ‘‘ polar expression.” It is
true that it is only the case of there being less of what is in one place than

another that is important for the divisibility of the One; but if there is less
in one place, there is more in another ¢han ix that place. The Greek
language tends to express these implications, The position of the relative
clause makes a difficulty for us, but hardly for a Greek.

1 Simplicius certainly read μὴ ἐὸν δ᾽ ἂν παντὸς ἐδεῖτο, which is metrically
impossible. I have followed Bergk in deleting μή, and have interpreted
with Zeller. So too Diels.

2 For the construction of ἔστι νοεῖν, see above, p. 198, ἢ. 1.

3 As Diels rightly points out, the Ionic φάτίζειν is equivalent to
ὀνομάζειν. The meaning, I think, is this, We may name things as we
choose, but there can be no thought corresponding to a name that is not
the name of something real.

—

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 201

that could keep it from reaching out equally, nor can aught
that is be more here and less there than what is, since it is all
inviolable. For the point from which it‘is equal in every
direction tends equally to the limits. R. P. 120.

THE Way OF OPINION

Here shall I close my trustworthy speech and thought 50
about the truth. Henceforward learn the opinions of mortals,
giving ear to the deceptive ordering of my words.

Mortals have made up their minds to name two forms,
one of which they should not name,! and that is where they
go astray from the truth. They have distinguished them as 55
opposite in form, and have assigned to them marks distinct
from one another. ‘To the one they allot the fire of heaven,
gentle, very light, in every direction the same as itself, but not
the same as the other. The other is just the opposite to it,
dark night, a compact and heavy body. Of these I tell thee 60
the whole arrangement as it seems likely; for so no thought
of mortals will ever outstrip thee. R. P. 121.

(9)

Now that all things have been named light and night, and
the names which belong to the power of each have been
assigned to these things and to those, everything is full at
once of light and dark night, both equal, since neither has
aught to do with the other.

(10, 11)

And thou shalt know the substance of the sky, and all the
signs in the sky, and the resplendent works of the glowing
sun’s pure torch, and whence they arose. And thou shalt learn
likewise of the wandering deeds of the round-faced moon, and

1 This is Zeller’s way of taking the words, and still seems to me the
best. Diels objects that ἑτέρην would be required, and renders mur eine
derselben, das sei unerlaubt, giving the words to the “mortals.” This
seems to me to involve more serious grammatical difficulties than the use
of μίαν for τὴν ἑτέραν, which is quite legitimate when there is an emphasis
on the number. Aristotle must have taken it so; for he infers that one of -
the μορφαί is to be identified with τὸ ἐόν.

10

5

202 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

of her substance. Thou shalt know, too, the heavens that sur-
round us, whence they arose, and how Necessity took them and
bound them to keep the limits of the stars . . . how the earth,
and the sun, and the moon, and the sky that is common to all,
and the Milky Way, and the outermost Olympos, and the
burning might of the stars arose. R. P. 123, 124.

(12)

The narrower rings are filled with unmixed fire, and those
next them with night, and in the midst of these rushes their
portion of fire. In the midst of these circles is the divinity
that directs the course of all things; for she is the beginner of
all painful birth and all begetting, driving the female to the
embrace of the male, and the male to that of the female.
Re P.. 225.

(13)

First of all the gods she contrived Eros. R. P. 125.

(14)
Shining by night with borrowed light,! wandering round
the earth.
(15)

Always looking to the beams of the sun.

(16)

'For just as thought finds at any time the mixture of its
erring organs, so does it come ‘to men; for that which thinks
is the same, namely, the substance of the limbs, in each and
every man; for their thought is that of which there is more in
them.? R. P. 128.

1 Note the curious echo of 71. v. 214. Empedokles has it too (v. 154).
It appears to be a joke, made in the spirit of Xenophanes, when it was
first discovered that the moon shone by reflected light.

2 This fragment of the theory of knowledge which was expounded in
the second part of the poem of Parmenides must be taken in connexion with
what we are told by Theophrastos in the ‘‘ Fragment on Sensation” (Dox.
p- 499; cf. p. 222). It appears from this that he said the character of
men’s thought depended upon the preponderance of the light or the dark
element in their bodies. They are wise when the light element predominates,
and foolish when the dark gets the upper hand.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 203

(17)

On the right boys; on the left girls.?

(19)

Thus, according to men’s opinions, did things come into
being, and thus they are now. In time they will grow up
and pass away. ‘To each of these things men have assigned
a fixed name. R. P. 129 b.

86. In the First Part of his poem, we find
Parmenides chiefly interested to prove that 22 zs; but
it is not quite obvious at first sight what it is precisely
that zs. He says simply, What zs, zs. Tous this does
not seem very clear, and that for two reasons. In the
first place, we should never think of doubting it, and
we cannot, therefore, understand why it should be
asserted with such iteration and vigour. In the second
place, we are accustomed to all sorts of distinctions
between different kinds and degrees of reality, and we
do not see which of these is meant. Such distinctions,
however, were quite unknown in those days. “That
which is,’ with Parmenides, is primarily what, in
popular language, we call matter or body; only it is

not matter as distinguished from anything else. It is |

certainly regarded as spatially extended ; for it is quite
seriously spoken of as a sphere (fr. 8, 40). Moreover,
Aristotle tells us that Parmenides believed in none but
a sensible reality, which does not necessarily mean with
him a reality that is actually perceived by the senses,
but includes any which might be so perceived if the
senses were more perfect than they are.” Parmenides

1 This is a fragment of Parmenides’s embryology. Diels’s fr. 18 is a
retranslation of the Latin hexameters of Caelius Aurelianus quoted
ΕΣ ares

2 Arist. de Caelo,T, 1. 298 Ὁ 21, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ (of περὶ Μέλισσόν τε καὶ
Παρμενίδην) διὰ τὸ μηθὲν μὲν ἄλλο παρὰ τὴν τῶν αἰσθητῶν οὐσίαν

δ ὃς

=

204 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

does not say a word about “ Being” anywhere.’ The

assertion that 22 zs j to this, that the

/universe is a plenum; and that there is no such thing

as empty space, either inside or outside the world.
From this it follows that there can be no such thing as
motion. Instead of endowing the One with an impulse
to change, as Herakleitos had done, and thus making
it capable of explaining the world, Parmenides dis-

missed change as an illusion. He showed once for all
that if you take the One seriously you are bound _ to
deny everything else. All previous solutions of the
question, therefore, had missed the point. Anaximenes,
who thought to save the unity of the primary substance
by his theory of rarefaction and condensation, did not

observe that, by assuming there was less of what is in’
one place than another, he virtually affirmed the exist-
ence of what is not (fr. 8, 42). The Pythagorean
explanation implied that empty space or air existed
outside the world, and that it entered into it to separate
the units (§ 53). It, too, assumes the existence of
what is not. Nor is the theory of Herakleitos any
more satisfactory ; for it is based upon the contradiction
that fire both is and is not (fr. 6).

The allusion to Herakleitos in the verses last referred

ὑπολαμβάνειν εἷναι x.r.X. So too Eudemos, in the first book of his Physics
(ap. Simpl. Phys. p. 133, 25), said of Parmenides: τὸ μὲν οὖν κοινὸν οὐκ ἂν
λέγοι. οὔτε yap ἐζητεῖτό πω τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ᾽ ὕστερον ἐκ τῶν λόγων
προῆλθεν, οὔτε ἐπιδέχοιτο ἂν ἃ τῷ ὄντι ἐπιλέγει. - πῶς γὰρ ἔσται τοῦτο
““μέσσοθεν ἰσοπαλὲς᾿ καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ; τῷ δὲ οὐρανῷ (the world) σχεδὸν
πάντες ἐφαρμόσουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι λόγοι. The Neoplatonists, of course, saw
in the One the νοητὸς κόσμος, and Simplicius calls the sphere a ‘* mythical
figment.” See especially Baiimker, ‘‘Die Einheit des Parmenideischen
Seiendes” (Jahrb. f. kl. Phil. 1886, pp. 541 sqq.), and Das Problem der
Materie, pp. 50 sqq.

1 We must not render τὸ ἐόν by ““ Being,” das Sein or Pétre. It is
‘‘what is,” das Secende, ce gui est. As to (τὸ) εἶναι it does not, and could
not, occur. Cf. p. 198, n. 1, above.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 205

to has been doubted, though upon insufficient grounds.
Zeller points out quite rightly that Herakleitos never
says Being and not-Being are the sdme (the common
translation of fr. 6, 8); and, were there nothing more
than this, the reference might well seem doubtful.
The statement, however, that, according to the view in
question, “all things travel in opposite directions,” can
hardly be understood of anything but the “ upward and
downward path” of Herakleitos (§ 71). And, as we
have seen, Parmenides does not attribute the view that
Being and not-Being are the same to the philosopher
whom he is attacking ; he only says that z¢ is and is not,
the same and not the same.’ That is the natural
meaning of the words ; and it furnishes a very accurate
description of the theory of Herakleitos.

87. The great novelty in the poem of Parmenides The method
is the method of argument. He first asks what is the ae
common presupposition of all the views with which he
has to deal, and he finds that this is the existence of
what is not. The next question is whether this can be
thought, and the answer is that it cannot. If you think
at all, you must think of something. Therefore there
is no nothin Philosophy had not yet learned to}
make the admission that a thing might be unthinkable}
. and nevertheless exist. Only that can be which can | ie
‘be thought (fr. 5); for thought exists for the sake of
what is (fr. 8, 34).

\ This method Parmenides carries out with the utmost
rigour. He will not have us pretend that we think
what we must admit to be unthinkable. It is true that
if we resolve to allow nothing but what we can under-

stand, we come into direct conflict with the evidence

1 See above, p. 198, n. 3.

206 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

of our senses, which present us with ἃ world of change
and decay. So much the worse for the senses, says
Parmenides. To many this will doubtless seem a
mistake on his part, but let us see what history has to
say on the point. The theory of Parmenides is the
inevitable outcome of a corporeal monism, and his bold
declaration of it ought to have destroyed that theory
for ever. If he had lacked courage to work out the
prevailing views of his time to their logical conclusion,
and to accept that conclusion, however paradoxical it
might seem to be, men might have gone on in the
endless circle of opposition, rarefaction and condensa-
tion, one and many, for ever. It was the thorough-
going dialectic of Parmenides that made _ progress
possible. Philosophy must now cease to be monistic
or cease to be corporealist. It could not cease to be

_ corporealist ; for the incorporeal was still unknown. It

‘The results.

therefore ceased to be monistic, and arrived at the
atomic theory, which, so far as we know, is the last
word of the view that the world is matter in motion.
Having worked out its problems on thosé conditions,
philosophy next attacked them on the other side. It
ceased to be corporealist, and found it possible to be
monistic once more, at least for a time. This progress
would have been impossible but for that faith in reason
which gave Parmenides the courage to reject as untrue
what was to him unthinkable, however strange the
result might be.

88. He goes on to develop all the consequences of

the admission that z¢ zs. It must be uncreated and

indestructible. It cannot have arisen out of nothing ;
ΒΟΘΘΙΕΒΟΣΙΘΣΕ :

for there is no such thing as nothing. Nor can it have
arisen from something ; for there is no room for any-

—

PARMENIDES QF ELEA 207

thing ‘but itself, AWh&t is cannot have beside it any
empty space in which something else might arise ; ‘for
empty space is nothing, nothing cannot’ be thought, and
therefore cannot exist. What is, never eame into being,
nor is anything going’to come into being in the future.
“Is it or is it not?” If it is, then it is now, all at
once, , |

That Parmenides was really denying the existence
of empty space was quite well known to Plato. He
says that Parmenides held “all things were one, and
that the one remains at rest in itself, having no place in

»1 Aristotle is’ no less clear. In the

which to move.
de Caelo he lays it down that Parmenides was driven
to take up the position that the One was immovable
just because no one had yet imagined that there was
any reality other than sensible reality.”

That which is, is; and it cannot be more or less.
There is, therefore, as much of it in one place as in
another, and the world is a continuous, indivisible
plenum. From _this it follows at once that it must be
immovable. If it moved, it must move into an empty
space, and there is no empty space. It is hemmed in
by what zs, by the real, on every side. For the same
reason, it must be finite, and can have nothing beyond
it. It is complete in itself, and has no need to stretch
out indefinitely into an empty space that does not exist.
Hence, too, it is spherical. It is equally real in every
direction, and the sphere is the only form which meets
this condition. Any other would de in one direction
more than in another. And this sphere cannot even

1 Plato, Zht. 180 e 3, ds ἕν τε πάντα ἐστὶ καὶ ἕστηκεν αὐτὸ ἐν αὑτῷ
οὐκ ἔχον χώραν ἐν ἣ κινεῖται.

2 Arist. de Caelo, T, 1. 298 Ὁ 21, quoted above, p. 203, ἢ. 2.

Parmenides
the father of
materialism.

The beliefs of
Ἢ ** mortals.”

208 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

move round its own axis; for there is nothing outside
of it with reference to which it could be said to move. |
89. To sum up. What zs, is a finite, spherical, |
motionless corporeal p/enum, and there is nothing beyond |
it. The appearances of multiplicity and motion, empty

space and time, are illusions. We see from this that

the primary substance of which the early cosmologists
were in search has now become a sort of “ thing in
itself” It never quite lost this character again. What
‘appears later as the elements of Empedokles, the so-

called “homoeomeries” of Anaxagoras and the atoms
of Leukippos and Demokritos, is just the Parmenidean
“being.” Parmenides is not, as some have said, the
“father of idealism”; on the contrary, all materialism
depends on his view of reality.

90. It is commonly said that, in the Second Part of
his poem, Parmenides offered a dualistic theory of the
origin of things as his own conjectural explanation of
the sensible world, or that, as Gomperz says, “ What
he offered were the Opinions of Mortals; and this
description did not merely cover other people’s opinions.
It included his own as well, as far as they were not
confined to the unassailable ground of an apparent

»1

philosophical necessity. Now it is true that in one

place Aristotle appears to countenance a view of this
sort, but nevertheless it is an anachronism.” Nor is it

really Aristotle’s view. He was perfectly well aware

1 Greek Thinkers, pp. 180 sqq.

2 Met. A, 5.986b 31(R. P. 121a). Aristotle’s way of putting the matter
is due to his interpretation of fr. 8, 54, which he took to mean that one of
the two ‘‘ forms” was to be identified with τὸ ὅν and the other with τὸ μὴ
ὄν. Cf. Gen. Corr. A, 3. 318 Ὁ 6, ὥσπερ ἸΠαρμενίδης λέγει δύο, τὸ ὃν Kal τὸ
μὴ ὃν εἶναι φάσκων. This last sentence shows clearly that when Aristotle
says Παρμενίδης, he means what we should call ““ Parmenides.” He cannot
have supposed that Parmenides admitted the being of τὸ μὴ ὄν in any sense
whatever (cf, Plato, Soph. 241 ἃ 5).

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 209

that Parmenides did not admit the existence of “ not-
being” in any degree whatever; but it was a natural
way of speaking to call the cosmology of the Second
Part of the poem that of Parmenides. His Hearers
would understand at once in what sense this was
meant. At any rate, the Peripatetic tradition was that
Parmenides, in the Second Part of the poem, meant
to give the belief of “the many.” This is how
Theophrastos put the matter, and Alexander seems to
have spoken of the cosmology as something which
Parmenides himself regarded as wholly false. The
other view comes from the Neoplatonists, and especially
Simplicius, who very naturally regarded the Way of
Truth as an account of the intelligible world, and the-
Way of Opinion as a description of the sensible. It
need hardly be said that this is almost as great an
anachronism as the Kantian parallelism suggested by
Gomperz.? Parmenides himself tells us in the most
unequivocal language that there is no truth at all in
the theory which he expounds, and he gives it merely
as the belief of “mortals.” It was this that led
Theophrastos to speak of it as the opinion of “the
many.”

His explanation however, though preferable to that
of Simplicius, is not convincing either. “The many”

1 Theophr. Phys. Op. fr. 6 (Dox. p. 482; R. P. 121 a), κατὰ δόξαν δὲ τῶν

πολλῶν els τὸ γένεσιν ἀποδοῦναι τῶν φαινομένων δύο ποιῶν Tas ἀρχάς. For
Alexander cf. Simpl. Phys. p. 38, 24.

2 Simpl. Phys. p. 39, 10 (R. P. 121 Ὁ). Gomperz, Greek Thinkers,
p. 180. E. Meyer says (Gesch. des Alterth. iv. § 510, Anm.): ‘* How
too can we think that a teacher of wisdom taught his disciples nothing
as to the way in which they must take the existing sensible world, even
if only as a deception?” This implies (1) that the distinction between
Appearance and Reality had been clearly grasped ; and (2) that a certain
hypothetical and relative truth was allowed to Appearance. These are
palpable anachronisms. Both views are Platonic, and they were not held
even by Plato in his earlier writings.

14

210 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

are as far as possible from believing in an elaborate
dualism such as Parmenides expounded, and it is a
highly artificial hypothesis to assume that he wished
to show how the popular view of the world could best
be systematised. “The many” would hardly be
convinced of their error by having their beliefs
presented to them in a form which they would certainly
fail to recognise. This, indeed, seems the most
incredible interpretation of all. It still, however, finds
adherents, so it is necessary to point out that the
beliefs in question are called “the opinions of mortals”
simply because the speaker is a goddess. Further,
we have to note that Parmenides forbids two ways of
research, and we have seen that the second of these,
which is also expressly ascribed to “ mortals,” must be
the system of Herakleitos. We should surely. expect,
then, to find that the other way too is the system of
some contemporary school, and it seems hard to
discover any of sufficient importance except the
Pythagorean. Now it is admitted by every one that
there are Pythagorean ideas in the Second Part of the
poem, and it is therefore to be presumed, in the absence
of evidence to the contrary, that the whole system
comes from the same source. It does not appear that
Parmenides said any more about Herakleitos than the
words to which we have just referred, in which he
forbids the second way of inquiry. He implies, indeed,
that there are really only two ways that can be thought
- of, and that the attempt of Herakleitos to combine
them was futile. In any case, the Pythagoreans

1 Cf. frs. 4 and 6, especially the words αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιός εἰσι
᾿ vojoat. The third way, that of Herakleitos, is only added as an after-
thought—avrap ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπὸ τῆς K.T.r.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 211

were far more serious opponents at that date in Italy,
and it is certainly to them that we should expect
Parmenides to define his attitude. —

It is still not quite clear, however, why he should
have thought it worth while to put into hexameters a
view which he believed to be false. Here it becomes.
important to remember that he had been a Pythagorean
himself, and that the poem is a renunciation of his
former beliefs. In such cases men commonly feel the
necessity of showing where their old views were wrong.
The goddess tells him that he must learn of those
beliefs also “how men ought to have judged that the
»1 That is clear .

so far; but it does not explain the matter fully. We

things which seem to them really are.

get a further hint in another place. He is to learn
these beliefs “in order that no opinion of mortals may
ever get the better of him ” (fr. 8, 61). If we remember
that the Pythagorean system at this time was handed
down by oral tradition alone, we shall perhaps see
what this means. Parmenides was founding a dissi-
dent school, and it was quite necessary for him to
instruct his disciples in the system they might be called
upon to oppose. In any case, they could not reject
it intelligently without a knowledge of it, and this
Parmenides had to supply himself.”

11 read χρῆν δοκιμῶσ᾽ εἶναι in fr. 1, 32 with Diels, but I do not feel
able to accept his rendering wie man bei griindlicher Durchforschung
annehmen miisste, dass sich jenes Scheinwesen verhalte. We must, I
think, take χρῆν δοκιμῶσαι (2.6. δοκιμάσαι) quite strictly, and χρῆν with the
infinitive means ‘fought to have.” The most natural subject for the
infinitive in that case is βροτούς, while εἶναι will be dependent on δοκιμῶσαι,
and have τὰ δοκοῦντα for its subject. This way of taking the words is
confirmed by fr. 8, 54, τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών ἐστιν, if taken as I have taken
it with Zeller. See above, p. 201, ἢ. 1.

3 The view that the opinions contained in the Second Part are those of
others, and are not given as true in any sense whatsoever, is that of Diels.
The objections of Wilamowitz (Hermes, xxxiv. pp. 203 sqq.) do not appear

The dualist
cosmology.

212 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

91. The view that the Second Part of the poem
of Parmenides was a sketch of contemporary Pytha-
gorean cosmology is, doubtless, incapable of rigorous
demonstration, but it can, I think, be made extremely
probable. The entire history of Pythagoreanism up to
the end of the fifth century B.C. is certainly conjectural ;
but, if we find in Parmenides ideas which are wholly
unconnected with his own view of the world, and if we
find precisely the same ideas in later Pythagoreanism,
the most natural inference will surely be that the later
Pythagoreans derived these views from their pre-
decessors, and that they formed part of the original
stock-in-trade of the society to which they belonged.
This will only be confirmed if nd that they are
developments of certain featureg”in the old Ionian
cosmology. Pythagoras came frém Samos, which always
stood in the closest relations with Miletos ; and it was
not, so far as we can see, in his cosmological views that
he chiefly displayed his originality. It has been pointed
out above (§ 53) that the idea of the world breathing
came from Anaximenes, and we need not be surprised to
find traces of Anaximander as well. Now, if we were

to me cogent. If we interpret him rightly, Parmenides never says that
‘“*this hypothetical explanation is . . . better than that of any one else”
(E. Meyer, iv. § 510, Amm.). What he does say is that it is untrue
altogether. It seem to me, however, that Diels has weakened his case by
refusing to identify the theory here expounded with Pythagoreanism, .and
referring it mainly to Herakleitos. Herakleitos was emphatically mot a
dualist, and I cannot see that to represent him as one is even what Diels
calls a ‘‘caricature” of his theory. Caricatures must have some point
of likeness. It is still more surprising to me that Patin, who makes
ἕν πάντα εἷναι the corner-stone of Herakleiteanism, should adopt this view
(Parmenides im Kampfe gegen Heraklit, 1899). E. Meyer (loc. cit.)
seems to think that the fact of Zeno’s having modified the δόξα ot
Parmenides in an Empedoklean sense (Diog. ix. 29; R.P. 140) proves
that it was supposed to have some sort of truth. On the contrary, it would
only show, if true, that Zeno had other opponents to face than Parmenides
had.

Uh,

~PARMENIDES OF ELEA 213

confined to what Aristotle tells us on this subject, it
would be almost impossible to make out a case; but
his statements require, as usual, to be examined with
a certain amount of care. He says, first of all, that the
two elements of Parmenides were the Warm and the
Cold." In this he is so far justified by the fragments
that, since the Fire of which Parmenides speaks is, of
course, warm, the other “form,” which has all the
opposite qualities, must of necessity be cold. But, never-
theless, the habitual use of the terms “ 24 warm” and
“the cold” is an accommodation to Aristotle’s own
system. In Parmenides himself they were simply one
pair of attributes amongst others.

. Still more misleading is Aristotle’s identification of
these with Fire and Earth. It is not quite certain that
he meant to say Parmenides himself made this identifica-
tion ; but, on the whole, it is most likely that he did,
and Theophastros certainly followed him in this.’ It is
another question whether it is accurate. Simplicius,
who had the poem before him (§ 85), after mentioning
Fire and Earth, at once adds “or rather Light and
Darkness” ;* and this is suggestive enough. Lastly,
Aristotle’s identification of the dense element with
“ what is not,” * the unreal of the First Part of the poem,
is not very easy to reconcile with the view that it is

1 καί. 986 Ὁ 34, θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρόν ; Phys. A, 5. 188 a 20; Gen.
Corr. A, 2. 4ι8ῦ6; B, 3. 330 Ὁ 14.

2 Phys. A, 5. 188 ἃ 21, ταῦτα δὲ (θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρὸν) προσαγορεύει πῦρ
καὶ γῆν ; Met. A, 5. 986 Ὁ 34, οἷον πῦρ καὶ γῆν λέγων. Cf. Theophr. Phys.
Op. fr. 6 (Dox. p. 482; R. P. 121 a). [Plut.] Strom. fr. 5 (Dox. p. 581),
λέγει δὲ τὴν γῆν τοῦ πυκνοῦ Karappuévros ἀέρος γεγονέναι. Zeller, p. 568,
n. I (Eng. trans. p. 593, n. 2).

8 Phys. p. 25, 15, ὡς Παρμενίδης ἐν τοῖς πρὸς δόξαν πῦρ καὶ γῆν
(ἢ μᾶλλον φῶς Kal σκότοϑ).

4 Met. A, 5. 986 Ὁ 35, τούτων δὲ κατὰ μὲν τὸ ὃν τὸ θερμὸν τάττει, θάτερον
δὲ κατὰ τὸ μὴ ὄν. See above, p. 208, n. 2.

214 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

earth. On the other hand, if we suppose that the
second of the two “forms,” the one which should not
have been “named,” is the Pythagorean Air or Void, we
get a very good explanation of Aristotle’s identifica-
tion of it with “what is not.” We seem, then, to be
justified in neglecting the identification of the dense
element with earth for the present. Ata later stage,
we shall be able to see how it may have originated.’
The further statement of Theophrastos, that the Warm
was the efficient cause and the Cold the material or
passive,” is intelligible enough if we identify them with
the Limit and the Unlimited respectively ; but is not,
of course, to be regarded as historical.

We have seen that Simplicius, with the poem of
Parmenides before him, corrects Aristotle by substituting
Light and Darkness for Fire and Earth, and in this he
is amply borne out by the fragments which he quotes.
Parmenides himself calls one “ form” Light, Flame, and
Fire, and the other Night, and we have now to consider
whether these can be identified with the Pythagorean
Limit and Unlimited. We have seen good reason to
believe (§ 58) that the idea of the world breathing
belonged to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism, and
there can be no difficulty in identifying this “ bound-
less breath” with Darkness, which stands very well
for the Unlimited. “ Air” or mist was always regarded
as the dark element.* And that which gives definite-

1 See below, Chap. VII. § 147.

2 Theophr. Phys. Of. fr. 6 (Dox. p. 482; R. P. 121 a), followed by
the doxographers.

3 Note the identification of the dense element with “air” in [Plut.]
Strom., quoted p. 213, n. 2; and for the identification of this ‘‘air”
with ‘‘ mist and darkness,” cf. Chap. I. § 27, and Chap. V.§ 107. It is to
be observed further that Plato puts this last identification into the mouth of
a Pythagorean (Zim. 52 d).

[ a =

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 215

ness to the vague darkness is certainly light or fire,
and this may account for the prominence given to that
element by Hippasos.! We may probably conclude,
then, that the Pythagorean distinction between the
Limit and the Unlimited, which we shall have to
consider later (Chap. VII.), made its first appearance in
this crude form. If, on the other hand, we identify
darkness with the Limit, and light with the Unlimited,
as most critics do, we get into insuperable difficulties.

92. We must now look at the general cosmical view The heavenly
expounded in the Second Part of the poem. The ἤρα:
. fragments are scanty, and the doxographical tradition
hard to interpret; but enough remains to show that
here, too, we are on Pythagorean ground. All
discussion of the subject must start from the following
important passage of Aetios :-—

Parmenides held that there were crowns crossing one
another? and encircling one another, formed of the rare and
the dense element respectively, and that between these there
were other mixed crowns made up of light and darkness.
That which surrounds them all was solid like a wall, and
under it is a fiery crown. That which is in the middle of all
the crowns is also solid, and surrounded in turn by a fiery
circle. The central circle of the mixed crowns is the cause
of movement and becoming to all the rest. He calls it
“the goddess who directs their course,” “the Holder of Lots,”
and “Necessity.” et. ii. 7. 1 (R. P. 126).

93. The first thing we have to observe is that it is The “crowns
quite unjustifiable to regard these “crowns” as spheres.
The word στέφαναι can mean “rims” or “brims” or
anything of that sort, but it seems incredible that it

1 See above, p. 121.

2 It seems most likely that ἐπαλλήλους here means ‘‘crossing one
another,” as-the Milky\Way crosses the Zodiac. The term ἐπάλληλος is
opposed to παράλληλος.

216 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

should be used of spheres. It does not appear, either,
that the solid circle which surrounds all the crowns is
to be regarded as spherical. The expression “like a
wall” would be highly inappropriate in that case.
We seem, then, to be face to face with something of the
same kind as the “wheels” of Anaximander, and
it is obviously quite likely that Pythagoras should
have taken this theory from him, Nor is evidence
altogether lacking that the Pythagoreans did regard the
heavenly bodies in this way. In Plato’s Myth of Er,
which is certainly Pythagorean in its general character,
we do not hear of spheres, but of the “lips” of
concentric whorls fitted into one another like a nest of
boxes." Even in the Zzmaeus there are no spheres,
but bands or strips crossing each other at an angle.”
Lastly, in the Homeric Hymn to Ares, which seems to
have been composed under Pythagorean influence, the
word used for the orbit of the planet is ἄντυξ,

must mean “rim.” ὃ

The fact is, there is really no evidence that an
ever adopted the theory of celestial spheres at all, till
Aristotle turned the geometrical construction” which
Eudoxos had set up as ἃ hypothesis: “to save
appearances” (σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα) into real things.*

1 Rep. x. 616 ἃ 5, καθάπερ οἱ κάδοι of eis ἀλλήλους ἁρμόττοντες : Ε I,
κύκλους ἄνωθεν τὰ χείλη φαίνοντας ἱσφονδύλου:).

2 Tim. 36 Ὁ 6, ταύτην οὖν τὴν σύστασιν πᾶσαν διπλῆν κατὰ μῆκος σχίσας,
μέσην πρὸς μέσην ἑκατέραν ἀλλήλαις οἷον χεῖ (the letter X) προσβαλὼν
κατέκαμψεν εἰς ἕν κύκλῳ.

3 Hymn to Ares, 6:

mupavyéa κύκλον ἑλίσσων
αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι.
ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.
So, in allusion to an essentially Pythagorean view, Proclus says to the
planet Venus (h. iv. 17):

» Ν « Ν ΄ ε a "ἦ > i 4 s
εἴτε καὶ ἑπτὰ κύκλων ὕπερ avTvyas αἰθέρα ψναιεις.

4 On the concentric spheres of Eudoxos, see Dreyer, Planetary Systems,

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 217

From that time forward we hear a great deal about
spheres, and it was natural that later writers should
attribute them to the Pythagoreans; but there is no
occasion to do violence to the language of Parmenides by
turning his “crowns” into anything of the sort. At this
date, spheres would not have served to explain anything
that could not be explained more simply without them.

We are next told that these “crowns” encircle one
another or are folded over one another, and that they
are made of the rare and the dense element. We
also learn that between them are “mixed crowns”
made up of light and darkness. Now it is to be
observed, in the first place, that light and darkness are
exactly the same thing as the rare and the dense, and
it looks as if there was some confusion here. It may
be doubted whether these statements are based on
anything else than fr. 12, which might certainly be
interpreted to mean that between the crowns of fire
there were crowns of night with a portion of fire in
them. That may be right; but I think it is rather
more natural to understand the passage as saying that
the narrower circles are surrounded by wider circles of
night, each with its portion of fire rushing in the midst
of it. These last words would then be a simple
repetition of the statement that the narrower circles
are filled with unmixed fire,| and we should have a

chap. iv. It is unfortunate that the account of Plato’s astronomy given in
this work is wholly inadequate, owing to the writer’s excessive reliance on
Boeckh, who was led by evidence now generally regarded as untrustworthy
to attribute all the astronomy of the Academy to their predecessors, and
especially to Philolaos.

1 Such a repetition (παλινδρομία) is characteristic of all Greek style, but
the repetition at the end of the period generally adds a new touch to the
statement at the opening. The new touch is here given in the word
tera. I do not press this interpretation, but it seems to me much the
simplest.

ν

The goddess.

218 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

fairly exact reproduction of the planetary system of
Anaximander. It is, however, possible, though I think
less likely, that Parmenides represented the space
between the circles as occupied by similar rings in
which the fire and darkness were mixed instead of
having the fire enclosed in the darkness.

94. “In the middle of those,’ says Parmenides,
“is the goddess who steers the course of all things.”
Aetios, that is, Theophrastos, explains this to mean in
the middle of the mixed crowns, while Simplicius
declares that it means in the middle of all the crowns,
that is to say, in the centre of the world.’ It is not
very likely that either of them had anything better to
go upon than the words of Parmenides just quoted, and
these are ambiguous. Simplicius, as is clear from the
language he uses, identified this goddess with the
Pythagorean Hestia or central fire, while Theophrastos
could not do this, because he knew and stated that
Parmenides held the earth to be round and in the
centre of the νου. In this very passage we are told
that what is in the middle of all the crowns is solid.
The data furnished by Theophrastos, in fact, exclude
the identification of the goddess with the central fire
altogether. We cannot say that what is in the middle
of all the crowns is solid, and that under it there is
again a fiery crown.’ Nor does it seem fitting to

1 Simpl. Phys. p. 34, 14 (R. P. 125 b). 3

2 Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 126 a).

3 I do not discuss the interpretation of περὶ ὃ πάλιν πυρώδης which
Diels gave in Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 104, and which is adopted in
R. P. 162 a, as it is now virtually retracted. In the second edition of his
Vorsokratiker (p. 111) he reads καὶ τὸ μεσαίτατον πασῶν στερεόν, «ὑφ᾽ @>
πάλιν πυρώδης [sc. στεφάνη]. That is a flat contradiction. It is of interest
to observe that Mr. Adam also gets into the interior of the earth in his

interpretation of the Myth of Er. It is instructive, too, because it shows
that we are really dealing with the same order of ideas. The most heroic

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 219

relegate a goddess to the middle of a solid spherical
earth. We must try to find a place for her elsewhere.

We are further told by Aetios that this goddess was
called Ananke and the “ Holder of Lots.”! We know
already that she steers the course of all things, that is,
that she regulates the motions of the celestial crowns.
Simplicius adds, unfortunately without quoting the
actual words, that she sends souls at one time from
the light to the unseen world, at another from the
unseen world to the light” It would be difficult to
describe more exactly what the goddess does in the
Myth of Er, and so here once more we seem to be on
Pythagorean ground. It is to be noticed further that
in fr. 10 we read how Ananke took the heavens and
compelled them to hold fast the -fixed courses of the
stars, and that in fr. 12 we are told that she is the
beginner, of all pairing and birth. Lastly, in fr. 13 we
hear that she created Eros first of all the gods. Modern
parallels are dangerous, but it is not really going much
beyond what is written to say that this Eros is the Will
to Live, which leads to successive rebirths of the soul.
So we shall find that in Empedokles it is an ancient
attempt to save the central fire for Pythagoras was my own hypothesis of
an annular earth (1st ed. p. 203). This has met with well-deserved
ridicule ; but all the same it is the only possible solution on these lines.
We shall see in Chap. VII. that the central fire belongs to the later
development of Pythagoreanism.

1 R. P. 126, where Fiilleborn’s ingenious emendation κλῃδοῦχον for
kAnpodxov is tacitly adopted. This is based upon the view that Aetios (or
Theophrastos) was thinking of the goddess that keeps the keys in the
Proem (fr. 1, 14). I now think that the κλῆροι of the Myth of Er
are the true explanation of the name. Philo uses the term κληροῦχος
θεός.

2 Simpl. Phys. p. 39, 19, καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς πέμπειν ποτὲ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ ἐμφανοῦς
εἰς τὸ ἀειδές (i.e. ἀιδές), ποτὲ δὲ ἀνάπαλίν φησιν. We should probably
connect this with the statement of Diog. ix. 22(R. P. 127) that men arose

from the sun (reading ἡλίου with the MSS. for the conjecture ἐλύος in the
Basel edition).

220 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

oracle or decree of Ananke that causes the gods to fall
and become incarnate in a cycle of births.’

We should, then, be more certain of the place which
this goddess occupies in the universe if we could be
quite sure where Ananke is in the Myth of Er,
Without, however, raising that vexed question, we may
lay down with some confidence that, according to
Theophrastos, she occupied a position midway between
the earth and the heavens. Whether we believe in the
“mixed crowns” or not makes no difference in this
respect ; for the statement of Aetios that she was in
the middle of the mixed crowns undoubtedly implies
that she was in that region. Now she is identified with
one of the crowns in a somewhat confused passage of
Cicero,” and we have seen above (p. 69) that the whole
theory of wheels or crowns was probably suggested by
the Milky Way. It seems to me, therefore, that we
must think of the Milky Way as a crown intermediate
between the crowns of the Sun and the Moon, and this
agrees very well with the prominent way in which it is
mentioned in fr. 11. -It is better not to be too
positive about the other details of the system, though it
is interesting to notice that according to some it was
Pythagoras, and according to others Parmenides, who
discovered the identity of the evening and morning
star. That fits in exactly with our general view.®

1 Empedokles, fr. 115.

? Cicero, de nat. D. i. 11, 28: ‘* Nam Parmenides quidem commenticium
quiddam coronae simile efficit (στεφάνην appellat), continente ardore lucis
orbem, qui cingat caelum, quem appellat deum.” We may connect with
this the statement of Aetios, ii. 20, 8, τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην ἐκ τοῦ
γαλαξίου κύκλου ἀποκριθῆναι.

8. Diog. ix. 23, καὶ δοκεῖ (Παρμενίδης) πρῶτος πεφωρακέναι τὸν αὐτὸν
εἶναι Ἕσπερον καὶ Φωσφόρον, ὥς φησι Φαβωρῖνος ἐν πέμπτῳ Ἀπομνημονευ-
μάτων᾽ οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόραν. If, as Achilles says, the poet Ibykos of Rhegion
had anticipated Parmenides in announcing this discovery,.that is to be

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 221

Besides all this, it is quite certain that Parmenides
went on to describe how the other gods were born and
how they fell, an idea which we know to be Orphic,
and which may well have been Pythagorean. We
shall come to it again in Empedokles. In Plato’s
Sympostum, Agathon couples Parmenides with Hesiod
as a narrator of ancient deeds of violence committed
by the gods." If Parmenides was expounding the
Pythagorean theology, all this is just what we should
expect; but it seems hopeless to explain it on any
of the other theories which have been advanced on
the purpose of the Way of Belief. Such things do
not follow naturally from the ordinary view of the
world, and we have no reason to suppose that
Herakleitos expounded his views of the upward and
downward path of the soul in this form. He certainly
did hold that the guardian spirits entered into human
bodies ; but the whole point of his theory was that he
gave a naturalistic rather than a theological account
of the process. Still less can we think it probable
that Parmenides made up these stories himself in
order to show what the popular view of the world
really implied if properly formulated. We must ask,
I think, that any theory on the subject shall account
for what was evidently no inconsiderable portion of
the poem.

95. In describing the views of his contemporaries,
Parmenides was obliged, as we see from the fragments,
explained by the fact that Rhegion had become the chief seat of the
Pythagorean school.

1 Plato, Symp. 195 c 1. It is implied that these παλαιὰ πράγματα were
πολλὰ καὶ βίαια, including such things as éxroual and δεσμοί. The
Epicurean criticism of all this is partially preserved in Philodemos, ae

pietate, p. 68, Gomperz ; and Cicero, de nat. D. i. 28 (Dox. p. 534; R. P.
126 b).

Physiology.

232 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to say a good deal about physiological matters. Like
everything else, man was composed of the warm and
the cold, and death was caused by the removal of the
warm. Some curious views with regard to generation
were also stated. In the first place, males came from
the right side and females from the left. Women had
more of the warm and men of the cold, a view which
we shall find Empedokles contradicting.’ It is just
the proportion of the warm and cold in men that
determines the character of their thought, so that
even corpses, from which the warm has been removed,
retain a perception of what is cold and dark.” These
fragments of information do not tell us much when
taken by themselves; but they connect themselves
in a most interesting way with the history of medicine,
and point to the fact that one of its leading schools
stood in close relation with the Pythagorean Society
Even before the days of Pythagoras, we know that
Kroton was famous for its doctors. A Krotoniate,
Demokedes, was court physician to the Persian king,
and married Milo the Pythagorean’s daughter.2 We
also know the name of a very distinguished medical
writer who lived at Kroton in the days between
Pythagoras and Parmenides, and the few facts we are
told about him enable us to regard the physio-
logical views described by Parmenides not as isolated
curiosities, but as landmarks by means of which we
can trace the origin and growth of one of the most
influential of medical theories, that which explains
health as a balance of opposites.

1 For all this, see R. P. 127 a, with Arist. de Part. An. B, 2. 648 a 28;
de Gen. An. A, τ. 765 Ὁ 19.

2 Theophr. dé sens. 3, 4 (R. P. 129).

3 Herod. iii. 131, 137.

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 223

96. Aristotle tells us that Alkmaion of Kroton! was Alkmaion of

a young man in the old age of Pythagoras. He does eee

not actually say, as later writers do, that he was a
Pythagorean, though he points out that he seems
either to have derived his theory of opposites from
the Pythagoreans or they theirs from him.? In any
case, he was intimately connected with the society,
as is proved by one of the scanty fragments of his
book. It began as follows: “Alkmaion of Kroton,
son of Peirithous, spoke these words to Brotinos and
Leon and Bathyllos. As to things invisible and things

mortal, the gods have certainty ; but, so far as men

2) 8

may infer. . The quotation unfortunately ends

in this abrupt way, but we learn two things from it.
In the first place, Alkmaion possessed that reserve
which marks all the best Greek medical writers ; and
in the second place, he dedicated his work to the heads
of the Pythagorean Society.*

Alkmaion’s chief importance in the history of \|
philosophy really lies in the fact that he is the founder |
of empirical psychology.’ It is certain that he regarded |

1 On Alkmaion, see especially Wachtler, De Alcmaeone Crotoniata
(Leipzig, 1896).

2 Arist. Met. A, 5. 986 a 27 (R. P. 66). In a 30 Diels reads, with
great probability, ἐγένετο τὴν ἡλικίαν «νέος» ἐπὶ γέροντι Πυθαγόρᾳ. Cf.
Iambl. V. Pyth. 104, where Alkmaion is mentioned among the συγχρονί-
σαντες kal μαθητεύσαντες τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ πρεσβύτῃ νέοι.

ὃ. Αλκμαίων Κρωτωνιήτης τάδε ἔλεξε Πειρίθου υἱὸς Βροτίνῳ καὶ Λέοντι καὶ
Βαθύλλῳ " περὶ τῶν ἀφανέων, περὶ τῶν θνητῶν, σαφήνειαν μὲν θεοὶ ἔχοντι, ὡς
δὲ ἀνθρώποις τεκμαίρεσθαι καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. The fact that this is not written
in conventional Doric, like the forged Pythagorean books, is a strong proof
of genuineness.

* Brotinos (not Brontinos) is variously described as the son-in-law or
father-in-law of Pythagoras. Leon is one of the Metapontines in the
catalogue of Iamblichos (Diels, Vors. p. 268), and Bathyllos is presumably
the Poseidoniate Bathylaos also mentioned there.

> Everything bearing on the early history of this subject is brought
together and discussed in Prof. Beare’s Greek Theories of Elementary
Cognition, to which I must refer the reader for all details.

224 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the brain as the common sensorium, an important
discovery which Hippokrates and Plato adopted from
him, though Empedokles, Aristotle, and the Stoics
reverted to the more primitive view that the heart
performs this function. There is no reason to doubt
that he made this discovery by anatomical means.
We have some authority for saying that he practised
dissection, and, though the nerves were not yet re-
cognised as such, it was known that there were certain
“passages” which might be prevented from com-
municating sensations to the brain by lesions.’ He
also distinguished between sensation and understanding,
though we have no means of knowing exactly where he
᾿ drew the line between them. His theories of the special
senses are of great interest. We find in him already,
what is characteristic of Greek theories of vision as a
whole, the attempt to combine the view of vision as an act
proceeding from the eye with that which attributes it to
an image reflected in the eye. He knew the importance of
air for the sense of hearing, though he called it the void, a
thoroughly Pythagorean touch. With regard to the other
senses, our information is more scanty, but sufficient to
show that he treated the subject systematically.”

His astronomy seems surprisingly crude for one
who stood in close relations with the Pythagoreans,
We are told that he adopted Anaximenes’ theory
of the sun and Herakleitos’s explanation of eclipses.’

1 Theophr. de sens. 26 (Beare, p. 252, ἢ. 1). Our authority for the
dissections of Alkmaion is only Chalcidius, but he gets his information on
such matters from far older sources. The πόροι and the inference from
lesions are vouched for by Theophrastos.

2 The details will be found in Beare, pp. 11 sqq. (vision), pp. 93 sqq.
(hearing), pp. 131 sqq. (smell), pp. 180 sqq. (touch), pp. 160 sqq. (taste).

3 Aet. ii. 22, 4, πλατὺν εἶναι τὸν ἥλιον ; 29, 3, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ σκαφοειδοῦς
στροφὴν καὶ τὰς περικλίσεις (ἐκλείπειν τὴν σελήνγν).

PARMENIDES OF ELEA 225

It is all the more remarkable that he is credited with
originating the idea, which it required all Plato’s
authority to get accepted later, that the planets have
an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the
diurnal revolution of the heavens.’ This, if true,
probably stood in close connexion with his saying
that soul was immortal because it resembled immortal
things, and was always in motion like the heavenly
bodies.” He seems, in fact, to be the real author
of the curious view which Plato put into the mouth
of the Pythagorean Timaios, that the soul has circles |
revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This
too seems to be the explanation of his further state-
ment that man dies because he cannot join the
beginning to the end.®? The orbits of the heavenly
bodies always come full circle, but the circles in the
head may fail to complete themselves. This new
version of the parallelism between the microcosm
and the macrocosm would be perfectly natural for
Alkmaion, though it is, of course, no more than a
playful fancy to Plato.

Alkmaion’s theory of health as “ isonomy ” is at
once that which most clearly connects him with earlier
inquirers like Anaximander, and also that which had
the greatest influence on the subsequent development
of philosophy. He observed, to begin with, that “ most
things human were two,” and by this he meant that
man was made up of the hot and the cold, the moist and

1 Aet. ii. 16, 2, (τῶν μαθηματικῶν τινες) τοὺς πλανήτας τοῖς ἀπλάνεσιν
ἀπὸ δυσμῶν ἐπ᾽ ἀνατολὰς ἀντιφέρεσθαι. τούτῳ δὲ συνομολογεῖ καὶ
᾿Αλκμαίων.

2 Arist. de An. A, 2. 405 ἃ 30 (R. Ρ. 66 ο).

8 Arist. Probl. 17, 3. 916 a 33, τοὺς ἀνθρώπους φησὶν ᾿Αλκμαίων διὰ
τοῦτο ἀπόλλυσθαι, ὅτι οὐ δύνανται τὴν ἀρχὴν τῷ τέλει προσάψαι.

15

226 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the dry, and the rest of the opposites.’ Disease was
just the “monarchy” of any one of these—the same
thing that Anaximander had called “ injustice ”—
while health was the establishment in the body of
a free government with equal laws.” This was the
leading doctrine of the Sicilian school of medicine
which came into existence not long after, and we
shall have to consider in the sequel its influence

on the development of Pythagoreanism. Taken along

»3

with the theory of “pores,”’ it is of the greatest

importance for later science.

1 Arist. AZe¢. A, 5. 986a 27 (R. P. 66).

2 Aet. v. 30, 1, ᾿Αλκμαίων τῆς μὲν ὑγιείας εἶναι συνεκτικὴν τὴν ἰσο-
νομίαν τῶν δυνάμεων, ὑγροῦ, ξηροῦ, ψυχροῦ, θερμοῦ, πικροῦ, γλυκέος, καὶ
τῶν λοιπῶν, τὴν δ᾽ ἐν αὐτοῖς μοναρχίαν νόσου ποιητικήν ᾿" φθοροποιὸν yap
ἑκατέρου μοναρχίαν.

3. My colleague, Dr. Fraser Harris, points out to me that Alkmaion’s
πόροι may have been a better guess than he knew. The nerve-fibres, when
magnified 1000 diameters, ‘‘sometimes appear to have a clear centre, as if
the fibrils were tubular.” —Schiafer, Essentials of Physiology (7th edition),
p. 132.

CHAPTER V
EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS

97. THE belief that all things are one was common Pluralism.
to the philosophers we have hitherto studied; but
now Parmenides has shown that, if this one thing
really zs, we must give up the idea that it can take
different forms. The senses, which present to us a,
world of change and multiplicity, are deceitful. From
this there was no escape; the time was still to come
when men would seek the unity of the world in
something which, from its very nature, the senses could
riever perceive.

We find, accordingly, that from the time of
Parmenides to that of Plato, all thinkers in whose
hands philosophy made real progress abandoned _the
monistic hypothesis. Those who still held by it
adopted a critical attitude, and confined themselves
to a defence of the theory of Parmenides against the
new views. Others taught the doctrine of Herakleitos
in an exaggerated form; some continued to expound
the systems of the early Milesians. This, of course,
showed want of insight ; but even those thinkers who
saw that Parmenides could not be left unanswered,
were by no means equal to their predecessors in power
and thoroughness. The corporealist hypothesis had

227

Date of Em-
pedokles. .

228 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

proved itself unable to bear the weight of a monistic
structure ; but a thorough-going pluralism such as the
atomic theory might have some value, if not as a
final explanation of the world, yet at least as an
intelligible view of a part of it. Any pluralism, on
the other hand, which, like that of Empedokles and

Anaxagoras, stops short of the atoms, will achieve no 3

permanent result, however many may be the brilliant |

apercus which it embodies. It will remain an attempt
to reconcile two things that cannot be reconciled,
and may always, therefore, be developed into con-
tradictions and paradoxes.

98. Empedokles was a citizen of Akragas in
Sicily, and his father’s name, according to the best
accounts, was Meton.’ His grandfather, also called
Empedokles, had won a victory in the horse-race at
Olympia in Ol. LXXI. (496-95 B.c.),? and Apollodoros
fixed the foruzt of Empedokles himself in Ol. LXXXIV.
I (444-43 B.C.). This is the date of the foundation of
Thourioi; and it appears from the quotation in
Diogenes that the almost contemporary biographer,
Glaukos of Rhegion,® said Empedokles visited the

1 Aet. i. 3, 20(R. P. 164), Apollodoros ag. Diog. viii. 52 (R. P. 162).
The details of the life of Empedokles are discussed, with a careful criticism
of the sources, by Bidez, La biographie ad’ Empédocle (Gand, 1894).

2 For this we have the authority of Apollodoros (Diog. viii. 51, 52;
R. P. 162), who follows the Olympic Victors of Eratosthenes, who in turn
appealed to Aristotle. Herakleides of Pontos, in his Περὲ νόσων (see
below, p. 233, n. 3), spoke of the elder Empedokles as a ‘‘ breeder of
horses” (R. P. 162 a); and Timaios mentioned him as a distinguished
man in his Fifteenth Book.

3 Glaukos wrote Περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων ποιητῶν καὶ μουσικῶν, and is said to
have been contemporary with Demokritos (Diog. ix. 38). Apollodoros adds
(R. P. 162) that, according to Aristotle and Herakleides, Empedokles died
at the age of sixty. It is to be observed, however, that the words ἔτι 6”
Ἡρακλείδης are Sturz’s conjecture, the MSS. having ἔτι δ᾽ Ἡράκλειτον, and
Diogenes certainly said (ix. 3) that Herakleitos lived sixty years. On the
other hand, if the statement of Aristotle comes from the Περὶ ποιητῶν, it is

~

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 229

new city shortly after its foundation. But we are
in no way bound to believe that he was just forty years
old at the time of the event in his life which can

most easily be dated. That is the assumption made
by Apollodoros; but there are reasons for thinking
that his date is too late by some eight or ten years.
It is, indeed, most likely that Empedokles did not go
to Thourioi till after his banishment from Akragas,
and he may well have been more than forty years old
when that happened. All, therefore, we can be said
to know of his date is, that his grandfather was still
alive in 496 B.c.; that he himself was active at
Akragas after 472, the date of Theron’s death; and
that he died later than 444.

Even these indications are enough to show that
he must have been a boy in the reign of Theron,
the tyrant who co-operated with Gelon of Syracuse
in the repulse of the Carthaginians from Himera.
His son and successor, Thrasydaios, was a man of
another stamp. Before his accession to the throne
of Akragas, he had ruled in his father’s name at
Himera, and completely estranged the affections of its
inhabitants. Theron died in 472 B.c., and Thrasydaios
at once displayed all the vices and follies usual in
the second holder of a usurped dominion. After a
disastrous war with Hieron of Syracuse, he was driven
out; and Akragas enjoyed a free government till it

not obvious why he should mention Herakleitos at all ; and Herakleides was
one of the chief sources for the biography of Empedokles.

1 See Diels, ‘‘ Empedokles und Gorgias,” 2 (Bert. Sitzd., 1884). Theo-
phrastos said that Empedokles was born “ not long after Anaxagoras” (Dox.
Ρ. 477, 17); and Alkidamas made him the fellow-pupil of Zeno under Par-
menides, and the teacher of Gorgias (see below, p. 231, ἢ. 5). Now Gorgias
was a little older than Antiphon (ὁ. Ol. LXX.), so it is clear we must go
back αὐ /east to 490 B.C. for the birth of Empedokles.

Empedokles

as a politician.

230 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

fell before the Carthaginians more than half a century
later.’

99. In the political events of the next few years,
Empedokles certainly played an important part; but
our information on the subject is of a very curious
kind. The Sicilian historian Timaios told one or
two stories about him, which are obviously genuine
traditions picked up about a hundred and fifty years
afterwards ; but, like all popular traditions, they are
a little confused. The picturesque incidents are
remembered, but the essential parts of the story
are dropped. Still, we may be thankful that the

“collector of old wives’ tales,” ἢ

as sneering critics
called him, has enabled us to measure the historical
importance of Empedokles for ourselves by showing
us how he was pictured by the great- iy, Spe
of his contemporaries.

We read, then,® that once he was invited to sup
with one of the “rulers.” Tradition delights in such
vague titles. “Supper was well advanced, but no
wine was brought in. The rest of the company said
nothing, but Empedokles was righteously indignant, and
insisted on wine being served. The host, however,
said he was waiting for the serjeant of the Council.
When that official arrived, he was appointed ruler of
the feast. The host, of course, appointed him.
Thereupon he began to give hints of an incipient
tyranny. He ordered the company either to drink or
have the wine poured over their heads. At the time,
Empedokles said nothing; but next day he led both

1 Ἐς, Meyer, Gesch. des Alterth. ii. p. 508.

2 He is called γραοσυλλέκτρια in Souidas, s.v. The view taken in the
text as to the value of his evidence is that of Holm.

3 Timaios ap. Diog. viii. 64 (7. 4.G.i. p. 214, fr. 88 a).

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 231

of them before the court, and had them condemned
and put to death—both the man who asked him to
supper and the ruler of the feast.' This was the
beginning of his political career.” The next tale is
that Empedokles prevented the Council from granting
his friend Akron a piece of land for a family sepulchre
on the ground of his eminence in medicine, and
supported his objection by a punning epigram.?
Lastly, he broke up the assembly of the Thousand—
perhaps some oligarchical association or club.’ It
may have been for this that he was offered the king-
ship, which Aristotle tells us he refused* At any
rate, we see that Empedokles was the great democratic
leader at Akragas in those days, though we have no
clear knowledge of what he did.

100. But there is another side to his public char-
acter which Timaios found it hard to reconcile with his
political views. He claimed to be a god, and to
receive the homage of his fellow-citizens in that capacity.
The truth is, Empedokles was not a mere statesman ;
he had a good deal of the “ medicine-man” about him.
According to Satyros,> Gorgias affirmed that he had

1 In the first edition, I suggested the analogy of accusations for
incivisme. Bidez says (p. 127), ‘‘J’imagine qu’un Jacobin aurait mieux
jugé Vhistoire” (than Karsten and Holm); “sous la Terreur, on était
suspect pour de moindres vétilles.”

2 Diog. viii. 65. The epigram runs thus:

ἄκρον ἰητρὸν ᾿Ακρων᾽ ᾿Ακραγαντῖνον πατρὸς “Axpov
κρύπτει κρημνὸς ἄκρος πατρίδος ἀκροτάτης.
On Akron, see M. Wellmann, of. cz¢. p. 235, n.I.

8 Diog. viii. 66, ὕστερον δ᾽ ὁ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς καὶ τὸ τῶν χιλέων ἄθροισμα
κατέλυσε συνεστὼς ἐπὶ ἔτη τρία. The word ἄθροισμα hardly suggests a
legal council, and συνίστασθαι suggests a conspiracy.

4 Diog. viii. 63. Aristotle probably mentioned this in his Sophést.
Cf. Diog. viii. 57.

5 Diog. viii. 59 (R. P. 162). Satyros probably followed Alkidamas.
Diels suggests (Amp. u. Gorg. p. 358) that the φυσικός of Alkidamas was

Empedokles
as a religious
teacher.

232 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

been present when his master was performing sorceries.
We can see what this means from the fragments of
the Purifications. Empedokles was a preacher of the
new religion which sought to secure release from the
“wheel of birth” by purity and abstinence; but it is
not quite certain to which form of it he adhered. On
the one hand, Orphicism seems to have been strong at
Akragas in the days of Theron, and there are even
some verbal coincidences between the poems of
Empedokles and the Orphicising Odes which Pindar
addressed to that prince." There are also some points
of similarity between the Rhapsodic Theogony, as we
know it from Damaskios, and certain fragments of
Empedokles, though the importance of these has been
exaggerated.” On the other hand, there is no reason
to doubt the statement of Ammonios that fr. 134
refers to Apollo;* and, if that is so, it would point
to his having been an adherent of the Ionic form of
the mystic doctrine, as we have seen (§ 39) that
Pythagoras was. Further, Timaios already knew the
story that he had been expelled from the Pythagorean
Order for “stealing discourses,” * and it is probable on
the whole that fr. 129 refers to Pythagoras.’ It would
be very hazardous to dogmatise on this subject; but
it seems most likely that Empedokles had been
influenced by Orphic ideas in his youth, and that, in
later life, he preached a form of Pythagoreanism which

a dialogue in which Gorgias was the chief speaker. In that case, the
statement would have little historical value.

1 See Bidez, p. 115, n. 1.

2 O. Kern, ‘‘ Empedokles und die Orphiker” (Arch. i. pp. 489 sqq.).
For the Rhapsodic Theogony, see Introd. p. 9, n. 4.

3 See below, note 27 Joc.

* Diog. viii. 54 (R. P. 162).

5 See below, note zz Joc.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 233

was not considered orthodox by the heads of the
Society. In any case, it seems far more probable that
his political and scientific activity belong to the same
period of his life, and that he only became a wandering
prophet after his banishment, than that his scientific
work belonged to his later days when he was a solitary
exile."

We hear of a number of marvels performed by
Empedokles, which are for the most part nothing but
inferences from his writings. Timaios told how he
weakened the force of the etesian winds by hanging
bags of asses’ skins on the trees to catch them. He
had certainly said, in his exaggerated way, that the
knowledge of science as taught by him would enable
his disciples to control the winds (fr. 111); and this,
along with the fabled windbags of Aiolos, is enough
to account for the tale.” We are also told how he
brought back to life a woman who had been breathless
and pulseless for thirty days. The verse where he
asserts that his teaching will enable Pausanias to bring
the dead back from Hades (fr. 111) shows how this
story may have arisen.» Again, we hear that he
sweetened the pestilent marsh between Selinous and
the sea by diverting the rivers Hypsas and Selinos
into it. We know from coins that this purification

? The latter view is that of Bidez (pp. 161 544.) ; but Diels has shown
{Berl.. Sitzb., 1898, pp. 406 sqq.) that the former is psychologically more
probable.

? I follow the wilder form of the story given by Diog. viii. 60, and not
the rationalised version of Plutarch (adv. Col. 1126 Ὁ). The epithets
ἀλεξανέμας and κωλυσανέμας were perhaps bestowed by some sillographer
in mockery ; cf. dveuoxoirns.

3 The Περὶ νόσων of Herakleides, from which it is derived, seems to
have been a sort of medico-philosophical romance. The words are
(Diog. viii. 60): Ἡρακλείδης τε !év'7@-Ilept νόσων φησὶ καὶ] Παυσανίᾳ
ὑφηγήσασθαι αὐτὸν τὰ περὶ τὴν ἄπνουν. It was a case of hysterical
suffocation.

Rhetoric and

medicine.

~

234 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

of the marshes actually took place, but we may doubt
whether it was attributed to Empedokles till a later
time.'

101. Aristotle said that Empedokles was the
? and Galen made him the founder
of the Italian school of Medicine, which he puts on a
level with those of Kos and Knidos.? Both these
statements must be considered in connexion with his
political and scientific activity. It seems to be certain

that Gorgias was his disciple in physics and medicine,

inventor of Rhetoric ;

and some of the peculiarities which marked his style
are to be found in the poems of Empedokles.* It is
not to be supposed, of course, that Empedokles wrote
a formal treatise on Rhetoric ; but it is in every way
probable, and in accordance with his character, that
the speeches, of which he must have made many, were
marked by that euphuism which Gorgias introduced
to Athens at a later date, and which gave rise to the
idea of an artistic prose. The influence of Empedokles
on the development of medicine was, however, far
more important, as it affected not only medicine itself,
but through it, the whole tendency of scientific and
philosophical thinking. It has been said _ that
Empedokles had no successors,’ and the remark is

1 For these coins see Head, Historia Numorum, pp. 147 sqq-

2 Diog. viii. 57 (R. P. 162 g).

3 Galen, x. 5, ἤριζον δ᾽ αὐτοῖς (the schools of Kos:and Knidos) .. . καὶ
οἱ ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ιταλίας ἰατροί, Φιλιστίων τε͵ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς καὶ Παυσανίας καὶ
οἱ τούτων ἑταῖροι x.7.. Philistion was the contemporary and friend of
Plato ; Pausanias is the disciple to whom Empedokles addressed his poem.

4 See Diels, ‘‘Empedokles und Gorgias” (Berl. Sitzb., 1884, pp.
343 sqq.). The oldest authority for saying that Gorgias was a disciple
of Empedokles is Satyros af. Diog. viii. 58 (R. P. 162); but he seems to
have derived his information from Alkidamas, who was the disciple of
Gorgias himself. In Plato’s Meno (76 ς 4-8) the Empedoklean theory

of effluvia and pores is ascribed to Gorgias.
“ἢ Diels (Berl, Sitzb., 1884, p. 343).

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 235

true if we confine ourselves strictly to philosophy.
On the other hand, the medical school which he
founded was still living in the days of Plato, and it
had considerable influence on him, and still more on
Aristotle." Its fundamental doctrine was the identifica-
tion of the four elements with the hot and the cold”
the moist and the dry. It also held that we breathe
through all the pores of the body, and that the act of
respiration is closely connected with the motion of the
blood. The heart, not the brain, was regarded as the
organ of consciousness.” A more external character-
istic of the medicine taught by the followers of
Empedokles is that they still clung to ideas of a
magical nature. A protest against this by a member
of the Koan school'has been preserved. He refers to
them as “magicians and purifiers and charlatans and |
quacks, who profess to be very religious.”* Though
there is some truth in this, it hardly does justice to
the great advances in physiology that were due to the )
Sicilian school.
102. In the biography of Empedokles, we hear prs. to
very little of his theory of nature. The only hints we eae
get are some statements about histeachers. Alkidamas,
who had good opportunities of knowing, made him a

1 See M. Wellmann, Fragmentsammlung der griechischen Artste, vol. |
i. (Berlin, 1901). According to Wellmann, both Plato (in the Zémaeus) |
and Diokles of Karystos depend upon Philistion. It is impossible to
understand the history of philosophy from this point onwards without
keeping the history of medicine constantly in view. |

2 For the four elements, cf. Anon. Lond. xx. 25 (Menon’s /a/rika),
Φιλιστίων δ᾽ οἴεται ἐκ 5’ ἰδεῶν συνεστάναι ἡμᾶς, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ἐκ 5’ στοιχείων "
πυρός, ἀέρος, ὕδατος, γῆς. εἶναι δὲ καὶ ἑκάστου δυνάμεις, τοῦ μὲν πυρὸς τὸ
θερμόν, τοῦ δὲ ἀέρος τὸ ψυχρόν, τοῦ δὲ ὕδατος τὸ ὑγρόν, τῆς δὲ γῆς τὸ
ξηρόν. For the theory of respiration, see Wellmann, pp. 82 544. ; and for
the heart as the seat of consciousness, 7. pp. 15 sqq-

8 Hippokr. Περὶ ἱερῆς νόσου, c 1, μάγοι Te καὶ καθάρται καὶ ἀγύρται καὶ ΝΣ
ἀλαζόνες. The whole passage should be read. Cf. Wellmann, p. 29 ἢ. |

\Death.

236 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

fellow-student of Zeno under Parmenides. That is
both possible and likely. Theophrastos too made him
a follower and imitator of Parmenides. But the further
statement that he had “heard” Pythagoras cannot be
right. Probably Alkidamas said “ Pythagoreans.” *

Some writers hold that certain parts of the system
of Empedokles, in particular the theory of pores and
effluvia (§ 118), which do not seem to follow very
naturally from his own principles, were due to the
influence of Leukippos.” This, however, is not neces-
sarily the case. We know that Alkmaion (§ 96) spoke
of “pores” in connexion with sensation, and it may
equally well be from him that Empedokles got the
theory. It may be added that this is more in
accordance with the history of certain other physio-
logical views which are common to Alkmaion and
the later Ionian philosophers. We can generally see
that those reached Ionia through the medical school
which Empedokles founded.’

103. We are told that Empedokles leapt into the
crater of Etna that he might be deemed a god. This
appears to be a malicious version * of a tale set on foot
by his adherents that he had been snatched up to
heaven in the night.’ Both stories would easily get

1 Diog. viii. 54-56 (R. P. 162).

2 Diels, Verhandl, αἰ. 35 Philologenversammil. pp. 104 sqq., Zeller, p. 767.
It would be fatal to the main thesis of the next few chapters if it could be
proved that Empedokles was influenced by Leukippos. I hope to show
that Leukippos was influenced by the later Pythagorean doctrine (Chap.
IX. § 171), which was in turn affected by Empedokles (Chap. VII. § 147).

3 For πόροι in Alkmaion, cf. Arist. de Gen. An. B, 6. 744 a8; Theophr.
de sens. 26; and for the way in which his embryological and other views
were transmitted through Empedokles to the Ionian physicists, cf.
Fredrich, Hippokratische Untersuchungen, pp. 126 sqq.

4 Ἐς P. 162h. The story is always told with a hostile purpose.

5 R. P. 2. This was the story told by Herakleides of Pontos, at the .
end of his romance about the ἄπνους.

.2..

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 237

accepted ; for there was no local tradition. Empedokles
did not die in Sicily, but in the Peloponnese, or,
perhaps, at Thourioi. He had gone to Olympia to
have his religious poem recited to the Hellenes; his
enemies were able to prevent his return, and he was
seen in Sicily no more.’

104. Empedokles was the second philosopher to
expound his system in verse, if we leave the satirist
Xenophanes out of account. He was also the last
among the Greeks ; for the forged Pythagorean poems
may be neglected.” Lucretius imitates Empedokles
in this, just as Empedokles imitated Parmenides. Of
course, the poetical imagery creates a difficulty for the
interpreter ; but it would be wrong to make too much
of it. It cannot be said that it is harder to extract
the philosophical kernel from the verses of Empedokles
than from the prose of Herakleitos.

There is some divergence of opinion as to the
poetical merit of Empedokles. The panégyric of
Lucretius is well known.? Aristotle says in one place
that Empedokles and Homer have nothing in common
but the metre ; in another, that Empedokles was “ most

}) 4

Homeric. To my mind, there can be no question

that he was a genuine poet, far more so than Parmenides.
No one doubts nowadays that Lucretius was one, and
Empedokles really resembles him very closely.

1 Timaios took the trouble to refute the common stories at some length
(Diog. viii. 71 sqq.; R. P. 2d.). He was quite positive that Empedokles
never returned to Sicily. Nothing can be more likely than that, when
wandering as an exile in the Peloponnese, he should have seized the
opportunity of joining the colony at Thourioi, which was a harbour for
many of the ‘‘ sophists ” of this time.

2 See Chap. IV. § 85.

3 Lucr. i. 716 sqq.

4 Poet. τ. 1447 Ὁ 18; cf. Diog. viii. 57 (R. P. 162.i).

Writings.

The remains.

238 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

105. We have more abundant remains of Em-
pedokles than of any other early Greek philosopher.
If we may trust our manuscripts of Diogenes and of
Souidas, the librarians of Alexandria estimated the Poem
on Nature and the Purzfications together as 5000 verses,
of which about 2000 belonged to the former work.!
Diels gives about 350 verses and parts of verses from
the cosmological poem, or not a fifth of the whole. It
is important to remember that, even in this favourable
instance, so much has been lost. Besides the two
poems, the Alexandrian scholars possessed a prose work
of 600 lines on medicine ascribed to Empedokles.
The tragedies and other poems which were sometimes
attributed to him seem really to belong to a younger
writer of the same name, who is said by Souidas to
have been his grandson.”

I give the remains as they are arranged by
Diels :—

(1)

And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitos the wise !

(2)
For straitened are the powers that are spread over their
bodily parts, and many are the woes that burst in on them and

1 Diog. viii. 77 (R. P. 162); Souidas 5... ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς " καὶ ἔγραψε δι᾽
ἐπῶν Περὶ φύσεως τῶν ὄντων βιβλία B’, καὶ ἔστιν ἔπη ὡς δισχίλια. It
hardly seems likely, however, that the Καθαρμοί extended to 3000 verses,
so Diels proposes to read πάντα τρισχίλια for πεντακισχίλια in Diogenes.
It is to be observed that there is no better authority than Tzetzes for
dividing the Περὶ φύσεως into three books. See Diels, ‘‘ Uber die
Gedichte des Empedokles ” (eri. Sztzb., 1898, pp. 396 sqq.).

2 Hieronymos of Rhodes declared (Diog. viii. 58) that he had met with
forty-three of these tragedies ; but see Stein, pp. § sqq. The poem on the
Persian Wars, which Hieronymos also refers to (Diog. viii. 57), seems to
have arisen from an old corruption in the text of Arist. Prod/. 929 Ὁ 16,
where Bekker still reads ἐν rots Περσικοῖς. The same passage, however, is
said to occur ἐν τοῖς φυσικοῖς, in Meteor. A, 4. 382 a 1, though there too E

« reads Περσικοῖς.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 239

blunt the edge of their careful thoughts! They behold but a
brief span of a life that is no life, and, doomed to swift
death, are borne up and fly off like smoke. Each is
convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon as he is
hurried to and fro, and idly boasts he has found the whole.
So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by
the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind! Thou,?
then, since thou hast found thy way hither, shalt learn no
more than mortal mind hath power. R. P. 163.

(3)

. to keep within thy dumb heart.

(4)

But, O ye gods, turn aside from my tongue the madness
of those men. Hallow my lips and make a pure stream flow
from them! And thee, much-wooed, white-armed Virgin
Muse, do I beseech that I may hear what is lawful for the
children of a day! Speed me on my way from the abode of
Holiness and drive my willing car! Thee shall no garlands of
glory and honour at the hands of mortals constrain to lift them
from the ground, on condition of speaking in thy pride beyond
that which is lawful and right, and so to gain a seat upon
the heights of wisdom,

Go to now, consider with all thy powers in what way each
thing is clear. Hold not thy sight in greater credit as
compared with thy hearing, nor value thy resounding ear
above the clear instructions of thy tongue;* and do not
withhold thy confidence in any of thy other bodily parts by
which there is an opening for understanding,°® but consider
everything in the way it is clear. R. P. 163.

1 The MSS. of Sextus have ζωῆσι βίου. Diels reads ζωῆς ἰδίου. I still
prefer Scaliger’s ζωῆς ἀβίους. Cf. fr. 15, τὸ δὴ βίοτον καλέουσι.

3 The person here addressed is still Pausanias, and the speaker Em-
pedokles. Cf. fr. 111.

3 No doubt mainly Parmenides.

4 The sense of taste, not speech.

5 Zeller in his earlier editions retained the full stop after νοῆσαι, thus
getting almost the opposite sense: ‘* Withhold all confidence in thy bodily
senses” ; but he admits in his fifth edition (Ρ. 804, n. 2) that the context is
in favour of Stein, who put only a comma at νοῆσαι and took ἄλλων closely

240 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(5)
‘But it is ever the way of low minds to disbelieve their
betters., Do thou learn as the sure testimonies of my Muse
bid thee, dividing the argument in thy heart.

(6)
Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-
bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis whose tear-drops are a
well-spring to mortals. R. P. 164.?

(7)
(8)

And I shall tell thee another thing. There is no coming
into being of aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful
death; but only mingling and change of what has been
mingled. Coming into being is but a name given to these by
men. R. P. 165.

. uncreated.

(9)

But, when the elements have been mingled in the fashion
of a man and come to the light of day, orin the fashion of the
race of wild beasts or plants or birds, then men say that these
come into being; and when they are separated, they call
that woeful death. They call it not aright; but I too follow
the custom, and call it so myself.

(10)

Avenging death.

(11, 12)

Fools !—for they have no far-reaching thoughts—who
deem that what before was not comes into being, or that

with γυίων. So too Diels. The paraphrase given by Sextus (R. P. 2.) is
substantially right.

1 There is no difficulty in the MS. διατμηθέντος if we take λόγοιο as
«ς discourse,” ‘‘argument” (cf. διαιρεῖν). Diels conjectures διασσηθέντος,
rendering ‘‘ when their words have passed through the sieve of thy mind.”
Nor does it seem to me necessary to read xaprd for κάρτα in the first line.

2 The four elements are introduced under mythological names, for which
see below, p. 264, n. I. Diels is clearly right in removing the comma after
τέγγει, and rendering Westis guae lacrimis suis laticem fundit mortalibus
destinatum.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 241

aught can perish and be utterly destroyed. For it cannot be
that aught can arise from what in no way is, and it is
impossible and unheard of that what zs should perish ; for it
will always de, wherever one may keep putting it. R. P. 165 a.

(13)

And in the All there is naught empty and naught too full.

(14)
In the All there is naught empty. Whence, then, could
aught come to increase it ?

(15)

A man who is wise in such matters would never surmise in
his heart that as long as mortals live what they call their life,
so long they are, and suffer good and ill; while before they
were formed and after they have been dissolved they are just
nothing at all. R. P. 165 a.

(16)
For of a truth they (Strife and Love) were aforetime and
shall be; nor ever, methinks, will boundless time be emptied
of that pair. R. P. 166.

(17)

I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At one time it grew to be
one only out of many; at another, it divided up to be many
instead of one. There is a double becoming of perishable
things and a double passing away. The coming together of
all things brings one generation into being and destroys
it; the other grows up and is scattered as things become
divided. And these things never cease continually changing
places, at one time all uniting in one through Love, at another
each borne in different directions by the repulsion of Strife.
Thus, as far as it is their nature to grow into one out of many,
-and to become many once more when the one is parted
asunder, so far they come into being and their life abides not.
But, inasmuch as they never cease changing their places
continually, so far they are ever immovable as they go round
the circle of existence.

16

10

15

20

25

30

35

᾿

242 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

But come, hearken to my words, for it is learning that
increaseth wisdom. As I said before, when I declared the
heads of my discourse, I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At
one time it grew together to be one only out of many, at
another it parted asunder so as to be many instead of one ;—
Fire and Water and Earth and the mighty height of
Air; dread Strife, too, apart from these, of equal weight to
each, and Love among them, equal in length and breadth.
Her do thou contemplate with thy mind, nor sit with dazed
eyes. It is she that is known as being implanted in the frame
of mortals. It is she that makes them have thoughts of love
and work the works of peace. They call her by the names of
Joy and Aphrodite. Her has no mortal yet marked moving
round among them,! but do thou attend to the undeceitful
ordering of my discourse.

For all these are equal and alike in age, yet each has a
different prerogative and its own peculiar nature. And nothing
comes into being besides these, nor do they pass away ; for,
if they had been passing away continually, they would not be
now, and what could increase this All and whence could it
come? How, too, could it perish, since no place is empty of
these things? They are what they are; but, running through
one another, they become now this, now that,” and like things
evermore. R. P. 166.

(18)
Love.

(19)
Clinging Love.

(20)

This (the contest of Love and Strife) is manifest in the
mass of mortal limbs. At one time all the limbs that are the
body’s portion are brought together by Love in blooming life’s
high season ; at another, severed by cruel Strife, they wander
each alone by the breakers of life’s sea.. It is the same with

1 Reading μετὰ τοῖσιν. I still think, however, that Knatz’s palaeo-
graphically admirable conjuncture μετὰ θεοῖσιν (2.6. among the elements)
deserves consideration.

2 Keeping ἄλλοτε with Diels.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 243

plants and the fish that make their homes in the waters, with
the beasts that have their lairs on the hills and the seabirds
that sail on wings. ΚΕ. P. 173 d.

(21)

Come now, look at the things that bear witness to my
earlier discourse, if so be that there was any shortcoming as
to their form in the earlier list. Behold the sun, everywhere
bright and warm, and all the immortal things that are bathed in
heat and bright radiance. Behold the rain, everywhere dark
and cold; and from the earth issue forth things close-pressed
and solid. When they are in strife all these are different
in form and separated; but they come together in love,
and are desired by one another.

For out of these have sprung all things that were and are
and shall be—treés and men and women, beasts and birds
and the fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and the gods that
live long lives and are exalted in honour. R. P. 166i.

For these things are what they are; but, running through
one another, they take different shapes—so much does mixture
change them. ΚΕ. P. 166 g.

(22)

For all of these—sun, earth, sky, and sea—are at one with
all their parts that are cast far and wide from them in mortal
things. And even so all things that are more adapted for
mixture are like to one another and united in love by
Aphrodite. Those things, again, that differ most in origin,
mixture and the forms imprinted on each, are most hostile,
being altogether unaccustomed to unite and very sorry by
the bidding of Strife, since it hath wrought their birth.

(23)
Just as when painters are elaborating temple-offerings, men
whom wisdom hath well taught their art,—they, when they
have taken pigments of many colours with their hands, mix

1 Reading ἄμβροτα δ᾽ ὅσσ᾽ ἴδει with Diels. For the word ἴδος, cf. frs.
62, 5; 73, 2. The reference is to.the moon, etc., which are made of
solidified Air, and receive their light from the fiery hemisphere. See
below, § 113.

10

— a een -

Io

Io

244 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

them in due proportion, more of some and less of others, and
from them produce shapes like unto all things, making trees
and men and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in
the waters, yea, and gods, that live long lives, and are exalted
in honour,—so let not the error prevail over thy mind,! that
there is any other source of all the perishable creatures that
appear in countless numbers. Know this for sure, for thou
hast heard the tale from a goddess.”

(24)
Stepping from summit to summit, not to travel only one
path to the end... .

(25)

What is right may well be said even twice.

(26)

For they prevail in turn as the circle comes round, and
pass into one another, and grow great in their appointed turn.
Bk. £O0'C. 3

They are what they are ; but, running through one another,
they become men and the tribes of beasts. At one time they
are all brought together into one order by Love ; at another,
they are carried each in different directions by the repulsion
of Strife, till they grow once more into one and are wholly
subdued. Thus in so far as they are wont to grow into one
out of many, and again divided become more than one, so
far they come into being. and their life is not lasting; but in
so far as they never cease changing continually, so far are
they evermore, immovable in the circle.

(27)
There are distinguished neither the swift limbs of the sun,
no, nor the shaggy earth in its might, nor the sea,—so fast
was the god bound in the close covering of Harmony,

1 Reading with Blass ( Jahrb. f. ki. Phil., 1883, p. 19):
οὕτω μή σ᾽ ἀπάτη φρένα καινύτω κ.τ.λ.
Cf. Hesychios: καινύτω" νικάτω. This is practically what the MSS. of
Simplicius give, and Hesychios has many Empedoklean glosses.
2 The ‘‘ goddess” is, of course,-the Muse. Cf. fr. 5

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 245

spherical and round, rejoicing in his circular solitude.
R. P. 167.
(272)
There is no discord and no unseemly strife in his limbs.

(28)
But he was equal on every side and quite without end,
spherical and round, rejoicing in his circular solitude.

(29)

Two branches do not spring from his back, he has no feet,
no swift knees, no fruitful parts; but he was spherical and
equal on every side.

(30, 31)

But, when Strife was grown great in the limbs of the god
andjsprang forth to claim his prerogatives, in the fulness of
the alternate time set for them by the mighty oath, . . . for
all the limbs of the god in turn quaked. R P. 167.

(32)

The joint binds two things.}

(33)
Even as when fig juice rivets and binds white milk. . . .

(34)
Cementing 2 meal with water... .

| (35, 36)

But now I shall retrace my steps over the paths of song
that I have travelled before, drawing from my saying a new
saying. When Strife was fallen to the lowest depth of the
vortex, and Love had reached to the centre of the whirl, in it do

1 The word μονίῃ, if it is right, cannot mean “rest,” but only solitude,
There is no reason for altering περιηγέι, though Simplicius has περιγηθέι.

2 The masculine κολλήσας shows that the subject cannot have been
Φιλότης ; and Karsten was doubtless right in believing that Empedokles
introduced the simile of a baker here. It is in his manner to take
illustrations from human arts.

Io

15

246 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

all things come together so as to be one only; not all at once,
but coming together at their will each from different quarters ;
and, as they mingled, countless tribes of mortal creatures were
scattered abroad. Yet many things remained unmixed, alter-
nating with the things that were being mixed, namely, all that
Strife not fallen yet retained ; for it had not yet altogether retired
perfectly from them to the outermost boundaries of the circle.
Some of it still remained within, and some had passed out from
the limbs of the All, But in proportion as it kept rushing
out, a soft, immortal stream of blameless Love kept running
in, and straightway those things became mortal which had
been immortal before, those things were mixed that had been
unmixed, each changing its path. And, as they mingled,
countless tribes of mortal creatures were scattered abroad
endowed with all manner of forms, a wonder to behold.
Ε. P. 169.

(37)

Earth increases its own mass, and Air swells the bulk of
Air.
(38)
Come, I shall now tell thee first of all the beginning of
the sun,! and the sources from which have sprung all the
things we now behold, the earth and the billowy sea, the

damp vapour and the Titan air that binds his circle fast
round all things. R. P. 170 ἃ.

(39)

If the depths of the earth and the vast air were infinite, a
foolish saying which has been vainly dropped from the lips of
many mortals, though they have seen but a little of the
Ab πο Ψ τὸφ Ὁ,

1 The MSS. of Clement have ἥλιον ἀρχήν, and the reading ἡλίου ἀρχήν
is a mere makeshift. Diels reads ἥλικά τ᾽ ἀρχήν, ‘* the first (elements)
equal in age.”

2 The lines are referred to Xenophanes by Aristotle, who quotes them
de Caelo, B, 13. 294 ἃ 21. See above, Chap. II. p. 137.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 247

(40)

The sharp-darting sun and the gentle moon.

(41)
But (the sunlight) is gathered together and circles round
the mighty heavens.

(42)

And she cuts off his rays as he goes above her, and casts a
shadow on as much of the earth as is the breadth of the
pale-faced moon.! /

(43)
Even so the sunbeam, having struck the broad and mighty
circle of the moon, returns at once, running ‘sO as to reach
the sky.

» (44)

It flashes back to Olympos with untroubled countenance.
BaF 170°C.

(45, 46)
There circles round the earth a round borrowed light, as
the nave of the wheel circles round the furthest (goal).

(47)
For she gazes at the sacred circle of the lordly sun opposite.

(48)
It is the earth that makes night by coming before the lights.

(49)
. Of solitary, blind-eyed night.

(5°)

And Iris bringeth wind or mighty rain from the sea.

(51)

(Fire) swiftly rushing upwards . . .

1 T have translated Diels’s conjecture ἀπεστέγασεν δέ ol αὐγάς, | ἔστ᾽
av ty καθύπερθεν. The MSS. have ἀπεσκεύασεν and ἔστε αἷαν.

_ Le ee ee

248 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(52)
And many fires burn beneath the earth. ΚΕ. P. 171 ἃ.

(53)
For so as it ran, it met them at that time, though often
otherwise. R. P. 171 ἃ.

(54)
But the air sank down upon the earth with its long roots.
Br. 172 ἃ.

(55)
Sea the sweat of the earth. R. P. 170 Ὁ.

(56)

Salt was solidified by the impact of the sun’s beams.

(57)
On it (the earth) many heads sprung up without necks and
arms wandered bare and bereft of shoulders. Eyes strayed up
and down in want of foreheads. R. P. 173 a.

(58)

Solitary limbs wandered seeking for union.

(59)
But, as divinity was mingled still further with divinity, these
things joined together as each might chance, and many other
things besides them continually arose.

(60)

Shambling creatures with countless hands.

(61)

Many creatures with faces and breasts looking in different
directions were born; some, offspring of oxen with faces of
men, while others, again, arose as offspring of men with the
heads of oxen, and creatures in whom the nature of women

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 249

and men was mingled, furnished with sterile+ parts. R. P.
173 b.
(62)

Come now, hear how the Fire as it was separated caused
the night-born shoots of men and tearful women to arise;
for my tale is not off the point nor uninformed. Whole-
natured forms first arose from the earth, having a portion

both of water and fire? These did the fire, desirous of 5

reaching its like, send up, showing as yet neither the charming
form of women’s limbs, nor yet the voice and parts that are
propertomen. R. P. 173 ¢.

(63)
. But the substance of (the child’s) limbs is divided
between them, part of it in men’s and part in women’s (body).

(64)
And upon him came desire reminding him through sight.
(65)
. And it was poured out in the pure parts; and yess
it nes ee cold women arose from it.
(66)
The divided meadows of Aphhrodite.
(67)
For in its warmer part the womb brings forth males, and
that is why men are dark and more manly and shaggy.
(68)
On the tenth day of the eighth month the white putrefaction
arises.®

1 Reading στείροις with Diels, Hermes, xv. loc. cit.

3 Retaining eldeos (2.6. ἴἔδεος), which is read in the MSS. of Simplicius.
Cf. above, p. 243, n. I.

8 That Empedokles regarded milk as putrefied blood is stated by
Aristotle (de Gen. An. A, 8. 777.27). The word πύον means 225. There
may be a punning allusion to πυός, “‘ beestings,” but that has its vowel
long.

250 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(69)
Double bearing."

(7°)
Sheepskin.”

(71)

But if thy assurance of these things was in any way
deficient as to how, out of Water and Earth and Air and Fire
mingled together, arose the forms and colours of all those
mortal things that have been fitted together by Aphrodite, and
50 ‘are now come into being... .

(72)

How tall trees and the fishes in the sea... .

(73)
And even as at that time Kypris, preparing warmth,?® after
she had moistened the Earth in water, gave it to swift fire to
αν 5 Ὁ Ἐ Ῥ τοῖς,

(74)
Leading the songless tribe of fertile fish.

(75)
All of those which are dense within and rare without,
having received a moisture of this kind at the hands of
Kypris. ...

(76)

This thou mayest see in the heavy-backed shell-fish that
dwell in the sea, in sea-snails and the stony-skinned turtles.
In them thou mayest see that the earthy part dwells on the
uppermost surface.

(77-78)
It is the air that makes evergreen trees flourish with
abundance of fruit the whole year round. :

1 Said of women in reference to births in the seventh and ninth
months.

2 Of the membrane round the fcetus.

3. Reading ἴδεα ποιπνύουσα with Diels.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 251

(79)

And:so first of all tall olive trees bear eggs. . . .

(80)

Wherefore pomegranates are late-born and apples succulent.

(81)

Wine is the water from the bark, putrefied in the wood.

(82)
Hair and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, and the scales
that grow on mighty limbs, are the same thing.

(83)

But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles
on their backs.

(84)

And even as when a man thinking to sally forth through ἃ
stormy night, gets him ready a lantern, a flame of blazing
fire, fastening to it horn plates to keep out all manner of
winds, and they scatter the blast of the winds that blow, but
the light leaping out through them, shines across the threshold
with unfailing beams, as much of it as is finer; even so did
she (Love) then entrap the elemental fire, the round pupil,
confined within membranes and delicate tissues, which are
pierced through and through with wondrous passages. They
keep out the deep water that surrounds the pupil, but they
let through the fire, as much of it as is finer. R. P. 177 Ὁ.

(85)
But the gentle flame (of the eye) has but a scanty portion
of earth.

(86)
Out of these divine Aphrodite fashioned unwearying eyes.

1 See Beare, p. 16, ἢ. 1, where Plato, Zi. 45 Ὁ 4 (rod πυρὸς ὅσον τὸ μὲν
κάειν οὐκ ἔσχεν, τὸ δὲ παρέχειν φῶς ἥμερον), is aptly quoted. Alexander
ad Joc. understands κατὰ βηλόν to mean κατ᾽ οὐρανόν, which seems
improbable.

10

252 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(87)

Aphrodite fitting these together with rivets of love.
(88)

One vision is produced by both the eyes.
(89)

Know that effluences flow from all things that have come
into being. R. P. 166 ἢ.

(90)
So sweet lays hold of sweet, and bitter rushes to bitter ;
acid comes to acid, and warm couples with warm.

(91)
Water fits better into wine, but it will not (mingle) with oil.
R. P. 166 ἢ.

; (92)
Brass mixed with tin.
(93)
The berry of the blue elder is mingled with scarlet.
(94)

And the black colour at the bottom of a river arises from
the shadow. The same is seen in hollow caves.

(95)

Since they (the eyes) first grew together in the hands of
Kypris.

(96)

The kindly earth received in its broad funnels two parts of
gleaming Nestis out of the eight, and four of Hephaistos. So
arose white bones divinely fitted together by the cement of
proportion. R. P. 175.

97)

(98)
And the earth, anchoring in the perfect harbours of
Aphrodite, meets with these in nearly equal proportions,

The spine (was broken).

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 283

with Hephaistos and Water and gleaming Air—either a little
more of it, or less of them and more of it. From these did
blood arise and the manifold forms of flesh. - R. P. 175 ¢.

(99)
The bell . . . the fleshy sprout (of the ear).!

(100)

Thus? do all things draw breath and breathe it out again.
All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of
their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost
surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores .closely
packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free
passage is cut for the air to pass through. Then, when the

thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with.

an impetuous surge; and when the blood runs back it is
breathed out again. Just as when a girl, playing with a
water-clock of shining brass, puts the orifice of the pipe upon
her comely hand, and dips the water-clock into the yielding
mass of silvery water,—the stream does not then flow into the
vessel, but the bulk of the air inside, pressing upon the close-
packed perforations, keeps it out till she uncovers the com-
pressed stream; but then air escapes and an equal volume
of water runs in,—just in the same way, when water occupies
the depths of the brazen vessel and the opening and passage
is stopped up by the human hand, the air outside, striving to
get in, holds the water back at the gates of the ill-sounding

Io

15

neck, pressing upon its surface, till she lets go with her hand. 20

Then, on the contrary, just in the opposite way to what

1 On fr. 99, see Beare, Ὁ. 96, n. 1.

* This passage is quoted by Aristotle (de Respir, 473 Ὁ 9), who makes
the curious mistake of taking ῥινῶν for the genitive of fis instead of ῥινός.
The Jocus classicus on the subject of the klepsydra is Prod/. 914 Ὁ 9 sqq.
(where read αὐλοῦ for ἄλλου, Ὁ 12). The klepsydra was a metal vessel
with a narrow neck (αὐλός) at the top and with a sort of strainer (ἠθμός)
pierced with holes (τρήματα, τρυπήματα) at the bottom. The passage in
the Problems just referred to attributes this theory of the phenomenon to
Anaxagoras, and we shall see later that he also made use of a similar
experiment (§ 131):

25

254 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

happened before, the wind rushes in and an equal volume of
water runs out to make room.! Even so, when the thin blood
that surges through the limbs rushes backwards to the interior,
straightway the stream of air comes in with a rushing swell;
but when the blood returns the air breathes out again in equal
quantity.
(101)

(The dog) with its nostrils tracking out the fragments of the
beast’s limbs, and the breath from their feet that they leave
in the soft grass.?

(102)

Thus all things have their share of breath and smell.

(103, 104)
Thus have all things thought by fortune’s will. . . . And
inasmuch as the rarest things came together in their fall.

(105)

(The heart), dwelling in the sea of blood that runs in
opposite directions, where chiefly is what men call thought ;
for the blood round the heart is the thought of men. ΚΕ. P.
178 ἃ.

(106)

For the wisdom of men grows according to what is before

weme) RO Py 277.

(107)

For out of these are all things formed and fitted together,

1 This seems to be the experiment described in Prod/. 914 Ὁ 26, ἐὰν
γάρ τις αὐτῆς (τῆς κλεψύδρας) αὐτὴν τὴν κωδίαν ἐμπλήσας ὕδατος, ἐπιλαβὼν
τὸν αὐλόν, καταστρέψῃ ἐπὶ τὸν αὐλόν, οὐ φέρεται τὸ ὕδωρ διὰ τοῦ αὐλοῦ
ἐπὶ στόμα. ἀνοιχθέντος δὲ τοῦ στόματος, οὐκ εὐθὺς ἐκρεῖ κατὰ τὸν αὐλόν,
ἀλλὰ μικροτέρῳ ὕστερον, ὡς οὐκ ὃν ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι τοῦ αὐλοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ὕστερον
διὰ τούτου φερόμενον ἀνοιχθέντος. The epithet δυσηχέος applied to ἐσθμοῖο
is best explained as a reference to the ἐρυγμός or ““ belching ” referred to
at 915 a 7 as accompanying the discharge of water through the αὐλός.
Any one can produce this effect with a water-bottle. If it were not for
this epithet, it would be tempting to read ἠθμοῖο for ἰσθμοῖο. Sturz
conjectured this, and it is actually the reading of a few MSS.

2 On fr. 101, see Beare, p. 135, ἢ. 2.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 255

and by these do men think and feel pleasure and pain.
R. P. 178.

(108)
And just so far as they grow to be different, so far do

different thoughts ever present themselves to their minds (in
dreams). R.P. 177 ἃ.

(199)
For it is with earth that we see Earth, and Water with
water ; by air we see bright Air, by fire destroying Fire. By
love do we see Love, and Hate by grievous hate. R.P. 176.

(110)

For if, supported on thy steadfast mind, thou wilt

contemplate these things with good intent and faultless care, _

then shalt thou have all these things in abundance throughout
thy life, and thou shalt gain many others from them. For
these things grow of themselves into thy heart, where is each
man’s true nature. But if thou strivest after things of another
kind, as is the way with men, ten thousand woes await thee
to blunt thy careful thoughts. Soon will these things desert
thee when the time comes round; for they long to return
once more to their own kind; for know that all things have
wisdom and a share of thought.

(111).

And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defence
against ills and old age; since for thee alone will I accomplish
allthis. Thou shalt arrest the violence of the weariless winds
that arise and sweep the earth; and again, when thou so
desirest, thou shalt bring back their blasts with a rush. Thou
shalt cause for men a seasonable drought after the dark rains,
and again thou shalt change the summer drought for streams
that feed the trees as they pour down from the sky. Thou
shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man.

1 That the reference is to dreams, we learn from Simpl. de Ax. p. 202,
30.

10

Io

256 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

PURIFICATIONS
(112)

Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the
yellow rock of Akragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works,
harbours of honour for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness,
all hail. I go about among you an immortal god, no mortal
now, honoured among all as is meet, crowned with fillets and
flowery garlands. Straightway, whenever I enter with these
in my train, both men and women, into the flourishing towns,
is reverence done me; they go after me in countless throngs,
asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles,
while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced
by the grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear
from me the word of healing. R. P. 162 f.

(113)

But why do I harp on these things, as if it were any great
matter that I should surpass mortal, perishable men?

(114)

Friends, I know indeed that truth is in the words I shall
utter, but it is hard for men, and jealous are they of the
assault of belief on their souls.

(115)

There is an oracle of Necessity,! an ancient ordinance of
the gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that when-
ever one of the demons, whose portion is length of days, has
sinfully polluted his hands with blood,? or followed strife and
forsworn himself, he must wander thrice ten thousand years
from the abodes of the blessed, being born throughout the
time in all manners of mortal forms, changing one toilsome

1 Bernays conjectured ῥῆμα, ‘‘ decree,” for χρῆμα, but this is not necessary.
Necessity is an Orphic personage, and Gorgias, the disciple of Empedokles,
says θεῶν βουλεύμασιν καὶ ἀνάγκης ψηφίσμασιν (Hel. 6).

2 I retain φόνῳ in v. 3 (so too Diels). The first word of v. 4 has been
lost. Diels suggests Νείκεϊ, which may well be right, and takes ἁμαρτήσας
as equivalent to ὁμαρτήσας. I have translated accordingly.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 257

path of life for another. For the mighty Air drives him into
the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth on the dry Earth;
Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he
flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from
the other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an
exile and a wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust
in insensate strife. R. P. 181.

(116)

Charis loathes intolerable Necessity.

(117)
For I have been ere now a boy and a girl, a bush and a
bird and a dumb fish in the sea. R. P. 182.

(118)
I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land.
R. P. 182.
(119)
From what honour, from what a height of bliss have I
fallen to go about among mortals here on earth.

(120)

We have come under this roofed-in cave.

(121)
. the joyless land, where are Death and Wrath and
troops of Dooms besides ; and parching Plagues and Rotten-
nesses and Floods roam in darkness over the meadow of Ate.

. (122, 123)

There were? Chthonie and far-sighted Heliope, bloody
Discord and gentle-visaged Harmony, Kallisto and Aischre,
Speed and Tarrying, lovely Truth and dark-haired Uncertainty,

1 According to Porphyry, who quotes this line (de Antro Nymph. 8),
these words were spoken by the ‘‘ powers” who conduct the soul into
the world (ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις). The ‘‘cave” is not originally Platonic
but Orphic.

2 This passage is closely modelled on the Catalogue of Nymphs in Jad
xviii. 39 sqq. Chthonie is found already in Pherekydes (Diog. i. 119).

17

258 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Birth and Decay, Sleep and Waking, Movement and Im-
mobility, crowned Majesty and Meanness, Silence and Voice.
RK. BP. 283.4.
(124)
Alas, O wretched race of mortals, twice unblessed: such
are the strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!

(125)
From living creatures he made them dead, changing their
forms.
(126)
(The goddess) clothing them with a strange garment of
flesh.!
(127)

Among beasts they” become lions that make their lair on
the hills and their couch on the ground; and laurels among
trees with goodly foliage. R. P. 181 b.

(128)

Nor had they? any Ares for a god nor Kydoimos, no nor
King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen.
. . . Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted
figures * and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of
pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, casting on the
ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not
reek with pure bull’s blood, but this was held in the greatest
abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing
out the life. R. P. 184.

ἘΠῚ have retained ἀλλόγνωτι as nearer the MSS., though a little hard to
interpret. On the subsequent history of the Orphic chzton in gnostic
imagery see Bernays, 7heophr. Schr. n. 9. It was identified with the coat
of skins made by God for Adam.

2 This is the best μετοίκησις (Ael. Wart. an. xii. 7).

3 The dwellers in the Golden Age.

4 The MSS. of Porphyry have γραπτοῖς re ζώοισι, which is accepted by
Zeller and Diels. The emendation of Bernays (adopted in R. P.) does not
convince me. I venture to suggest μακτοῖς, on the strength of the story
related by Favorinus (af. Diog. viii. 53) as to the bloodless sacrifice offered
by Empedokles at Olympia.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 259

(129)

And there was among them a man of rare knowledge,
most skilled in all manner of wise works, a man who had won
the utmost wealth of wisdom; for whensoever he strained
with all his mind, he easily saw everything of all the things
that are, in ten, yea, twenty lifetimes of men.!

(130)

For all things were tame and gentle to man, both beasts
and birds, and friendly feelings were kindled everywhere.
R. P. 184 a.

(131)

If ever, as regards the things of a day, immortal Muse, thou
didst deign to take thought for my endeavour, then stand by
me once more as I pray to thee, O Kalliopeia, as I utter
a pure discourse concerning the blessed gods. R. P. 179.

(132)

Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine
wisdom ; wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in
his heart. R. P. 179.

(133)

It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to
lay hold of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of
persuasion that leads into the heart of man,

(134)

For he is not furnished with a human head on his body,
two branches do not sprout from his shoulders, he has no
feet, no swift knees, nor hairy parts; but he is only a sacred
and unutterable mind flashing through the whole world with
rapid thoughts. R. P. 180.

(135)
This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others ; but
the law for all extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air
and the infinite light of heaven. R. P. 183.

1 These lines were already referred to Pythagoras by Timaios (Diog.
will, 54). As we are told (Diog. 2d.) that some referred the verses to
Parmenides, it is clear that no name was given.

& 4

260 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(136)
Will ye not cease from this ill-sounding slaughter? See ye
not that ye are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness
of your hearts? R. P. 184 Ὁ.

(137)

And the father lifts up his own son in a changed form and
slays him with a prayer. Infatuated fool! And they run up
to the sacrificers, begging mercy, while he, deaf to their cries,
slaughters them in his halls and gets ready the evil feast. In

5 like manner does the son seize his father, and children their
mother, tear. out their life and eat the kindred flesh.
R. P. 184 b.

(138)
' Draining their life with bronze.

(139)
Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy

me ere ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips!
R. P. 184 b.

(140)
Abstain wholly from laurel leaves.

(141)
Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans !
(142)

Him will the roofed palace of aigis-bearing Zeus never
rejoice, nor yet the house of . . . .

(143)
Wash your hands, cutting the water from the five springs
in the unyielding bronze! R. P. 184 ¢.

(144)
Fast from wickedness! R. P. 184 ὁ.

+ On frs. 138 and 143 see Vahlen on Arist. Poe¢. 21. 1547 Ὁ 13, and
Diels in Hermes, xv. p. 173.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 261

(145)
Therefore are ye distraught by grievous wickednesses, and
will not unburden your souls of wretched sorrows.

(146, 147)

But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets,
song-writers, physicians, and princes ; and thence they rise up
as gods exalted in honour, sharing the hearth of the other gods
and the same table, free from human woes, safe from destiny,
and incapable of hurt. R. P. 181.

(148)
. . . Earth that envelops the man.

106. At the very outset of his poem, Empedokles
is careful to mark the difference between himself and

previous inquirers. He speaks angrily of those who,

though their experience was only partial, professed to
have found the whole (fr. 2); he even calls this
“madness” (fr. 4). No doubt he is thinking of
Parmenides. His own position is not, however,
sceptical. He only deprecates the attempt to construct
a theory of the universe off-hand instead of trying to
understand each thing we come across “in the way in
which it is clear” (fr. 4). And this means that we
must not, like Parmenides, reject the assistance of the
senses. Weak though they are (fr. 2), they are the
only channels through which knowledge can enter our
minds at all. We soon discover, however, that
Empedokles is not very mindful of his own warnings.
He too sets up a system which is to explain everything,
though that system is no longer a monistic one.

It is often said that this system was an attempt to
mediate between Parmenides and Herakleitos. It is
not easy, however, to find any trace of specially
Herakleitean doctrine in it, and it would be truer to

Empedokles
and Par-
menides.

262 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

say that it aimed at mediating between Eleaticism
and the senses. He repeats, almost in the same words,
the Eleatic argument for the sole reality and inde-
structibility of “what zs” (frs. 11-15); and his idea of
the “ Sphere” seems to be derived from the Parmenidean
description of the universe as it truly is.’ Parmenides
had held that the reality which underlies the illusory
world presented to us by the senses was a corporeal,
spherical, continuous, eternal, and immovable plenum,
and it is from this that Empedokles starts. Given the
sphere of Parmenides, he seems to have said, How are
we to get from it to the world we know? How are
we to introduce motion into the immovable plenum?
Now Parmenides need not have denied the pos-
sibility of motion within the Sphere, though he was
bound to deny all motion of the Sphere itself; but
such an admission on his part, had he made it, would
not have served to explain anything. If any part of
the Sphere were to move, the room of the displaced
matter must at once be taken by other matter, for
there is no empty space. This, however, would be of
precisely the same kind as the matter it had displaced ;
for all “that zs” is one. The result of the motion
would be precisely the same as that of rest; it could
account for no change. But, Empedokles must have
asked, is this assumption of perfect homogeneity in
the Sphere really necessary? Evidently not; it is
simply the old unreasoned feeling that existence must
be one. If, instead of this, we were to assume a
number of existent things, it would be quite possible
᾿ to apply all that Parmenides says of reality to each of
them, and the forms of existence we know might be

1 Cf. Emp. frs. 27, 28, with Parm. fr. 8.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 263

explained by the mingling and separation of those
realities. The conception of “elements” (στουχεῖα), to
use a later term,! was found, and the required formula
follows at once. So far as concerns particular things,
it is true, as our senses tell us, that they come into
being and pass away; but, if we have regard to the
ultimate elements of which they are composed, we
shall say with Parmenides that “what zs” is uncreated
and indestructible (fr. 17). ,

107. The “four roots” of all things (fr. 6) which
Empedokles assumed were those that have become
traditional—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. It is to be
noticed, however, that he does not call Air ἀήρ, but
αἰθήρ, and this must be because he wished to avoid
any confusion with what had hitherto been meant by
the former word. He had, in fact, made the great
discovery that atmospheric air is a distinct corporeal
substance, and is not to be identified with empty space
on the one hand or rarefied mist on the other. Water
is not liquid air, but something quite different.’ This
truth Empedokles demonstrated by means of the
apparatus known as the &/epsydra, and we still possess
the verses in which he applied his discovery to the
explanation of respiration and the motion of the blood
(fr. 100). Aristotle laughs at those who try to show
there is no empty space by shutting up air in water-
clocks and torturing wineskins. They only prove, he
says, that air is a thing.» That, however; is exactly

1 For the history of the term στοιχεῖον see Diels, Elementum. Eudemos
said (af. Simpl. Phys. p. 7, 13) that Plato was the first to use it, and this is
confirmed by the way the word is introduced in 74¢. 201 e. The original
term was μορφή or ἰδέα. 2 Cf. Chap. I. § 27.

8 Arist. Phys. A, 6, 213 a 22 (R. P. 159). Aristotle only mentions
Anaxagoras by name in this passage ; but he speaks in the plural, and we
know from fr. 100 that the A/epsydra experiment was used by Empedokles.

The ‘four
roots.”

264 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

what Empedokles intended to prove, and it was one
of the most important discoveries in the early history
of science. It will be convenient for us to translate
the αἰθήρ of Empedokles by “air”; but we must be
careful in that case not to render the word ἀήρ in the
same way. Anaxagoras seems to have been the first
to use it of atmospheric air.

Empedokles also called the “four roots” by the
names of certain divinities—“ shining Zeus, life-bringing
Hera, Aidoneus,,and Nestis” (fr.. 6)—though there is
some doubt as to how these names are to be appor-
tioned among the elements. Nestis is said to have
been a Sicilian water-goddess, and the description of
her shows that she stands for Water; but there is a
conflict of opinion as to the other three. This, how-
ever, need not detain us... We are already prepared
to find that Empedokles called the elements gods ; for
all the early thinkers had spoken, in this way of
whatever they regarded as the primary substance.

1 In antiquity the Homeric Allegorists made Hera Earth and ἡγε ρου
Air, a view which has found its way into Aetios from Poseidonios.
arose as follows. The Homeric Allegorists were not Sitexeatall't in ia
science of Empedokles, and did not see that his αἰθήρ was quite a different
thing from Homer’s ἀήρ. Now this is the dark element, and night is a
form of it, so it would naturally be identified with Aidoneus. Again,
Empedokles calls Hera φερέσβιος, and that is an old epithet of Earth in
Homer. Another view current in antiquity identified Hera with Air,
which is the theory of Plato’s Cratylus, and Aidoneus with Earth. The
Homeric Allegorists further identified Zeus with Fire, a view to which they
were doubtless led by the use of the word αἰθήρ. Now αἰθήρ certainly
means Fire in Anaxagoras, as we shall see, but there is no doubt that in
Empedokles it meant Air. It seems likely, then, that Knatz is right
(‘‘Empedoclea” in Schedae Philologicae Hermanno Usenero oblatae, 1891, pp.
I 544.) in holding that the bright Air of Empedokles was Zeus. This leaves
Aidoneus to stand for Fire ; and nothing could have been more natural for
a Sicilian poet, with the volcanoes and hot springs of his native island in
mind, than this identification. He refers to the fires that burn beneath
the Earth himself (fr. 52). If that is so, we shall have to agree with the
Homeric Allegorists that Hera is Earth; and there is certainly no
improbability in that.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 265

We must only remember that the word is not used in
its religious sense. Empedokles did not pray or
sacrifice to the elements, and the use of divine names
is in the main an accident of the poetical form in
which he cast his system.

Empedokles regarded the “roots of all things” as
eternal. Nothing can come from nothing or pass
away into nothing (fr. 12); what is zs, and there is no
room for coming into being and passing away (fr. 8).
Further, Aristotle tells us, he taught that they were
unchangeable.! This Empedokles expressed by saying
that “they are what they are” (frs. 17, 34; 21, 13),
and are “always alike.” Again, they are all “equal,”
a statement which seemed strange to Aristotle,’ but
was quite intelligible in the days of Empedokles.
Above all, the elements are ultimate. All other bodies,
as Aristotle puts it, might be divided till you came
to the elements; but Empedokles could give no
further account of these without saying (as he did not)
that there is an element of which Fire and the rest
are in.turn composed.’

The “four roots” are given as an _ exhaustive
enumeration of the elements (fr. 23 sud fin.) ; for they
account for all the qualities presented by the world to
the senses. When we find, as we do, that the school
of medicine which regarded Empedokles as its founder

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. B, 1. 329 Ὁ 1. ® Jbid. B, 6. 333 ἃ τό.

8 Jbid. A, 8. 325 Ὁ 19 (R. P. 164 e). This was so completely
misunderstood by later writers that they actually attribute to Empedokles
the doctrine of στοιχεῖα πρὸ τῶν στοιχείων (Aet. i. 13, 13 17, 3). The
criticism of the Pythagoreans and Plato had made the hypothesis of
elements almost unintelligible to Aristotle, and @ fortiori to his successors.
As Plato put it (7%. 48 Ὁ 8), they were ‘‘ not even syllables,” let alone
*‘ letters” (στοιχεῖα). That is why Aristotle, who derived them from

something more primary, calls them τὰ καλούμενα στοιχεῖα (Diels,
Elementum, p. 25).

Strife and
Love,

266 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

identified the four elements with the “opposites,” the
hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, which formed
the theoretical foundation of its system, we see at once
how the theory is related to previous views of reality.’
To put it shortly, what Empedokles did was to take
the opposites of Anaximander and to declare that
they were “things,” each of which was real in the
Parmenidean sense. We must remember that the
conception of quality had not yet been formed.
Anaximander had no doubt regarded his “ opposites ”
as things; though, before the time of Parmienides, no
one had fully realised how much was implied in saying
that anything is a thing. That is the stage we have
now reached. There is still no conception of quality,
but there is a clear apprehension of what, is involved
in saying that a thing zs.

Aristotle twice” makes the statement that, though
Empedokles assumes four elements, he treats them as
two, opposing Fire to all the rest. This, he says, we
can see for ourselves from his poem. So far as the
general theory of the elements goes, it is impossible to
see anything of the sort; but, when we come to the
origin of the world (§ 112), we shall find that Fire
certainly plays a leading part, and this may ‘be what
Aristotle meant. It is also true that in the biology
(§§ 114-116) Fire fulfils a unique function, while the
other three act more or less in the same way. But we
must remember that it has no pre-eminence over the
rest: all are equal.

108. The Eleatic criticismggad made it necessary for

1 We know from Menon that Philistion put the matter in this way.
See p. 235, n. 2.

2 Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 a 31; de Gen. Corr. B, 3. 330 Ὁ 19 (R. Ρ.
164 e).

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 267

subsequent thinkers to explain motion.’ Empedokles
starts, as we have seen, from an original state of the
“four roots,” which only differs from the Sphere of
Parmenides in so far as it is a mixture, not a homo-
geneous and continuous mass. The fact that it is a
mixture makes change and motion possible; but, were
there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter
in, like the Pythagorean “Air,” to separate the four
elements, nothing could ever arise from it. Empedokles
accordingly assumed the existence of such a substance,
and he gave it the name of Strife. But the effect of
this would be to iseparate all the elements in the
Sphere completely, and then nothing more could
possibly happen ; something else was needed to bring
the elements together again. This Empedokles found
in Love, which he regarded as the same impulse to
union that is implanted in human bodies (fr. 17, 22
sqq.). He looks at it, in fact, from a purely
physiological point of view, as was natural for the
founder of a medical school. No mortal had yet
marked, he says, that the very same Love which
men know in their bodies had a place among the
elements.

It is important to observe that the Love and Strife
of Empedokles are no incorporeal forces, but corporeal
elements like the other four. At the time, this was
inevitable ; nothing incorporeal had yet been dreamt of.
Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of
what he regarded as efficient causes. “The Love
of Empedokles,” he sayy “is both an efficient cause,
for it brings things together, and a material cause, for
it is a part of the mixture.” And Theophrastos

1 Cf. Introd. § VIII. . 2 Arist. Met. A, 10. 1075 Ὁ 3.

268 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

expressed the same idea by saying’ that Empedokles
sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife,
and sometimes put them on a level with the other
four. The verses of Empedokles himself leave no ~
room for doubt that the two were thought of as spatial
and corporeal. All the six are called “equal.” Love
is said to be “equal in length and breadth” to the
others, and Strife is described as equal to each of them
in weight (fr. 17).

The function of Love is to produce union; that of!
Strife, to break it up again. Aristotle, however, rightly
points out that in another sense it is Love that divides
and Strife that unites. When the Sphere is broken up
by Strife, the result is that all the Fire, for instance,
which was contained in it comes together and becomes
one; and again, when the elements are brought
together once more by Love, the mass of each is
divided. In another place, he says that, while Strife is
assumed as the cause of destruction, and does, in fact,
destroy the Sphere, it really gives birth to everything
else in so doing.? It follows that we must carefully
distinguish between the Love of Empedokles and
that “attraction of like for like” to which he also
attributed an important part in the formation of the
world. The latter is not an element distinct from the
others ; it depends, we shall see, on the proper nature
of each element, and is only able to take effect when
Strife divides the Sphere. Love, on the contrary, is
something that comes from outside and produces an
attraction of unlikes.

1 Theophr. Phys. Op. fr. 3 (Dox. p. 477); ap. Simpl. Phys. p. 25, 21
(R. P. 166 b).

2 Arist. Jet. A, 4. 985 a 21; I, 4. 1000 a 243 bg (R. P.
166 i).

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 269

109. But, when Strife has once separated the Mixture and
elements, what is it that determines the direction of ἜΠῚῚ
their motion? Empedokles seems to have given no
further explanation than that each was “running”
in a certain direction (fr. 53). Plato severely con-
demns this in the Zaws,' on the ground that no room
is thus left for design. Aristotle also blames him for
giving no account of the Chance to which he ascribed
so much importance. Nor is the Necessity, of which
he also spoke, further explained.? Strife enters into
the Sphere at a certain time in virtue of Necessity, or
“the mighty oath” (fr. 30) ; but we are left in the dark
as to the origin of this.

The expression used by Empedokles to describe the
movement of the elements is that they “run through
each other” (fr. 17, 34). Aristotle tells us* that he
explained mixture in general by “the symmetry of
pores.” And this is the true explanation of the
“attraction of like for like”’ The “pores” of like
bodies are, of course, much the same size, and these
bodies can therefore mingle easily. On the other hand,
a finer body will “run through” a coarse one without
becoming mixed, and a coarse body will not be able
to enter into the pores of a finer one at all. It will be
observed that, as Aristotle says, this really implies
something like the atomic theory; but there is no
evidence that Empedokles himself was conscious of -
that. Another question raised by Aristotle is even
more instructive. Are the pores, he asks, empty or
full? If empty, what becomes of the denial of the

1 Plato, Laws, x. 889 Ὁ. The reference is not to Empedokles ex-
clusively, but the language shows that Plato is thinking mainly of him.

2 Arist. de Gen. Corr. B, 6. 334 τ; Phys. Θ, 1. 252 ἃ 5 (R. P. 166k).

3 Jbid. A, 8. 324 Ὁ 34 (R. P. 166 h).

The four.
periods.

jur world the
ork of Strife,

270 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

void? If full, why need we assume pores at all?’
These questions Empedokles would have found it hard
to answer. They point to a real want of thoroughness
in his system, and mark it as a mere stage in the
transition from Monism to Atomism.

110. It will be clear from all this that we must
distinguish four periods in the cycle. First we have
the Sphere, in which all the elements are mixed
together by Love. Secondly, there is the period when
Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when,
therefore, the elements are partially separated and
partially combined. Thirdly, comes the complete

eparation of the elements, when Love is outside the

world, and Strife has given free play to the attraction of
like for like. Lastly, we have the period when Love is
bringing the elements together again, and Strife is
passing out. This brings us back in time to the
Sphere, and the cycle begins afresh. Now a world
such as ours can exist only in the second and fourth of
these periods; and it is clear that, if we are to
understand Empedokles, we must discover in which of
these we now are. It seems to be generally supposed
that we are in the fourth period ;? I hope to show that
we are really in the second, that when Strife is gaining
the upper hand.

111. That a world of perishable things arises both
in the second and fourth period is distinctly stated by
Empedokles (fr. 17), and it is inconceivable that he

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. 326 Ὁ 6.

2 This is the view of Zeller (pp. 785 sqq.), but he admits that the external
testimony, especially that of Aristotle, is wholly in favour of the other.
His difficuity is with the fragments, and if it can be shown that these can
be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle’s statements, the question is
settled. Aristotle was specially interested in Empedokles, and was not
likely to misrepresent him on such a point.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 271

himself had not made up his mind which of these
worlds isours. Aristotle is clearly of opinion that it is
the world which arises when Strife is increasing. In
one place, he says that Empedokles “holds that the
world is in a similar condition now in the period of
Strife as formerly in that of Love.”* In another, he
tell us that Empedokles omits the generation of things
in the period of Love, just because it is unnatural to
represent this world, in which the elements are separate,
as arising from things in a state of separation.” This
remark can only mean that the scientific theories con-
tained in the poem of Empedokles assumed the increase
of Strife, or, in other words, that they represented the
course of evolution as the disintegration of the Sphere,
not as the gradual coming together of things from a
state of separation. That is only what we should
expect, if we are right in supposing that the problem
he set himself to solve was the origin of this world from
the Sphere of Parmenides, and it is also in harmony
with the universal tendency of such speculations to
represent the world as getting worse rather than better.
We have only to consider, then, whether the details of
the system bear out this general view.
112. To begin with the Sphere, in which the “ four Formation of

roots of all things” are mixed together, we note in the poets γα

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. Β, 6. 334.26: τὸν κόσμον ὁμοίως ἔχειν φησὶν ἐπί
τε τοῦ νείκους νῦν καὶ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς φιλίας.

2 Arist. de Caelo, T, 2. 301 414: ἐκ. διεστώτων δὲ καὶ κινουμένων οὐκ
εὔλογον ποιεῖν τὴν γένεσιν. διὸ καὶ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς παραλείπει τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς
φιλότητος" οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἠδύνατο συστῆσαι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκ κεχωρισμένων μὲν
κατασκευάζων, σύγκρισιν δὲ ποιῶν διὰ τὴν φιλότητα" ἐκ διακεκριμένων γὰρ
συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος τῶν στοιχείων (‘* our world consists of the elements in
a state of separation”), ὥστ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον γενέσθαι ἐξ ἑνὸς καὶ συγκεκριμένου.

8. It need not mean that Empedokles said nothing about the world of
Love at all ; for he obviously says something of both worlds in fr. 17. It is
enough to suppose that, having described both in general terms, he went
on to treat the world of Strife in detail.

272 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

first place that it is called a god in the fragments just
as the elements are, and that Aristotle more than once
refers to it in the same way.’ We must remember
that Love itself is a part of this mixture,’ while Strife
surrounds or encompasses it on every side just as the
Boundless encompasses the world in earlier systems.
Strife, however, is not boundless, but equal in bulk to
each of the four roots and to. Love.

At the appointed time, Strife begins to enter into
the Sphere and Love to go out of it (frs. 30, 31).
The fragments by themselves throw little light on this ;
but Aetios and the Plutarchean Stromatezs have between
them preserved a very fair tradition of what Theo-
phrastos said on the point.

Empedokles held that Air was first separated out and
secondly Fire. Next came Earth, from which, highly com-
pressed as it was by the impetus‘of its revolution, Water
gushed forth. From the water Mist was produced by

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. B, 6. 333 Ὁ 21(R. P. 168 e); AZez. B, 4. 1000 a 29
(R. P. 166i). Cf. Simpl. Pzys. p. 1124, 1 (R. P. 167 Ὁ). In other places
Aristotle speaks of it as ‘‘the One.” Cf. de Gen. Corr. A, 1. 315 a7 (R. P.
168 e); 2722. B, 4. 1000 a 29 (R. P. 1661); A, 4. 985 a 28 (R. P. 20.).
This, however, involves a slight Aristotelian ‘‘development.” It is not
quite the same thing to say, as Empedokles does, that all things come to-
gether ‘‘into one,” and to say that they come together “into the One.”
The latter expression suggests that they lose their distinct and proper
character in the Sphere, and thus become something like Aristotle’s own
‘*matter.” As has been pointed out (p. 265, n. 3), it is hard for Aristotle
to grasp the conception of irreducible elements ; but there can be no doubt
that in the Sphere, as in their separation, the elements remain ‘‘ what they
are” for Empedokles. As Aristotle also knows quite well, the Sphere is a
mixture. Compare the difficulties about the ‘‘One” of Anaximander
discussed in Chap. I. § 15.

2 This accounts for Aristotle’s statement, which he makes once positively
(Met. B, 1. 996 a 7) and once very doubtfully (JZet. Τ', 4. 1001 a 12), that
Love was the substratum of the One in just the same sense as the Fire of
Herakleitos, the Air of Anaximenes, or the Water of Thales. He thinks
that all the elements become merged in Love, andsso lose their identity.
In this case, it is in Love he recognises his own ‘‘ matter.”

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 273

evaporation. The heavens were formed out of the Air and
the sun out of the Fire, while terrestrial things were condensed
from the other elements. Aet. ii. 6. 3 (Dox. p. 334; R. P.
170).

Empedokles held that the Air when separated off from the
original mixture of the elements was spread round in a circle.
After the Air, Fire running outwards, and not finding any
other place, ran up under the solid that surrounded the Air.!
There were two hemispheres revolving round the earth, the
one altogether composed of fire, the other of a mixture of air
and a little fire. The latter he supposed to be the Night.
The origin of their motion he derived from the fact of fire
preponderating in one hemisphere owing to its accumulation
there. Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 10 (Dox. p. 582; ΕΒ. P. 170 8).

The first of the elements to be separated out by
Strife, then, was Air, which took the outermost position
surrounding the world (cf. fr. 38). We must not, how-
ever, take the statement that it surrounded the world
“in a circle” toostrictly. It appears that Empedokles
regarded the heavens as shaped like an egg.” Here,
probably, we have a trace of Orphic ideas. At any
rate, the outer circle of the Air became solidified or
frozen, and we thus get a crystalline vault as the
boundary of the world. We note that it was Fire
which solidified the Air and turned it to ice. Fire in
general had a solidifying power.® *

In its upward rush Fire displaced a portion of the
Air in the upper half of the concave sphere formed by
the frozen sky. This air then sunk downwards,
carrying with it a small portion of the fire. In this

1 For the phrase τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἀέρα πάγου cf. Περὶ διαίτης, i. 10, 1,
πρὸς τὸν περιέχοντα πάγον. Et, M. s.v. Bndds . . . τὸν ἀνωτάτω πάγον
καὶ περιέχοντα τὸν πάντα ἀέρα. This probably comes ultimately from
Anaximenes. Cf. Chap. I. p. 82, n. 1.

2 Aet. ii. 31, 4 (Dox. p. 363).

3 Aet. ii. 11, 2 (R. P 170 c).
18

‘The sun,
moon, stars,
and earth.

274 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

way, two hemispheres were produced: one, consisting
entirely of fire, the diurnal hemisphere ; the other, the -
nocturnal, consisting of air with a little fire. .

The accumulation of Fire in the upper hemisphere |
disturbs the equilibrium of the heavens and causes them
to revolve; and this revolution not only produces the
alternation of day and night, but by its rapidity keeps’
the heavens and the earth in their places. This was
illustrated, Aristotle tells us, by the simile of a cup of
water whirled round at the end of a string.’ The
verses which contained this remarkable account of so-
called “centrifugal force” have been lost ; but the ex-
perimental illustration is in the manner of Empedokles.

113. It will be observed that day and night have
been explained without reference to the sun. Day is
produced by the light of the fiery diurnal hemisphere,
while night is the shadow thrown by the earth when
the fiery hemisphere is on the other side of it (fr. 48).
What, then, is the sun? The Plutarchean Stromateis 2
again give us the answer: “The sun is not fire in
substance, but a reflexion of fire like that which comes
from water.” Plutarch himself makes one of his
personages say: “ You laugh at Empedokles for saying
that the sun is a product of the earth, arising from the
reflexion of the light of heaven, and once more ‘ flashes
back to Olympos with untroubled countenance.’ ”®

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 295 a 16(R. P. 170 b). The experiment with
τὸ ἐν τοῖς κυάθοις ὕδωρ, which κύκλῳ τοῦ κυάθου φερομένου πολλάκις κάτω
τοῦ χαλκοῦ γινόμενον ὅμως οὐ φέρεται κάτω, reminds us of the experiment
with the ζώεγαγα in fr. 100.

2 [Plut.] Strom. fr. 10 (Dox. p. 582, irs Ri P3950 e),

3 Plut. ve Pyth. Or. 400 Ὁ (R. P. 170 c). We must keep the MS.
reading περὶ γῆν with Bernardakis and Diels. The reading περιαυγῇ in
R. P. is a conjecture of Wyttenbach’s ; but cf. Aet. ii. 20, 13, quoted in the
next note,

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 275

Aetios says:' “ Empedokles held that there were two
suns: one, the archetype, the fire in one hemisphere
of the world, filling the whole hemisphere always
stationed opposite its own reflexion; the other, the
visible sun, its reflexion in the other hemisphere, that
which is filled with air mingled with fire, produced by the
reflexion of the earth, which is round, on the crystalline
sun, and carried round by the motion of the fiery
hemisphere. Or, to sum it up shortly, the sun is a
reflexion of the terrestrial fire.”

These passages, and especially the last, are by no
means clear. The reflexion which we call the sun
cannot be in the hemisphere opposite to the fiery one ;
for that is the nocturnal hemisphere. We must say
rather that the light of the fiery hemisphere is reflected
by the earth on to the fiery hemisphere itself in one
concentrated flash. From this it follows that the
appearance which we call the sun is the same size as
the earth, We may explain the origin of this view as
follows. It had just been discovered that the moon
shone by reflected light, and there is always a tendency
to give any novel theory a wider application than it
really admits of. In the early part of the fifth century
B.C.. men saw reflected light everywhere; the Pytha-
goreans held a very similar view, and when we come to
them, we shall see why Aetios, or rather his source,
expresses it by speaking of “two suns.”

Δ Aet. ii, 20, 13 (Dox. p. 350), ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς δύο ἡλίους") τὸν μὲν
ἀρχέτυπον, πῦρ ὃν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τοῦ κόσμου, πεπληρωκὸς τὸ
ἡμισφαίριον, αἰεὶ κατ᾽ ἀντικρὺ τῇ ἀνταυγείᾳ ἑαυτοῦ τεταγμένον" τὸν
δὲ φαινόμενον, ἀνταύγειαν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τῷ τοῦ ἀέρος τοῦ
θερμομιγοῦς πεπληρωμένῳ, ἀπὸ κυκλοτεροῦς τῆς γῆς κατ᾽ ἀνάκλασιν
γιγνομένην εἰς τὸν ἥλιον τὸν κρυσταλλοειδῇῆ, συμπεριελκομένην δὲ τῇ κινήσει
τοῦ muplvov. ὡς δὲ βραχέως εἰρῆσθαι συντεμόντα, ἀνταύγειαν εἷναι τοῦ
περὶ τὴν γῆν πυρὸς τὸν ἥλιον.

276 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

It was probably in this connexion that Empedokles
announced that light takes some time to travel, though
its speed is so great as to escape our perception.’

“The moon,” we are told, “was composed of air
cut off by the fire; it was frozen just like hail, and
had its light from the sun.” It is, in other words, a
disc of frozen air, of the same substance as the solid
sky which surrounds the heavens. Diogenes says that
Empedokles taught it was smaller than the sun, and
Aetios tells us it was only half as distant from the
earth.’

Empedokles did not attempt to explain the fixed
stars by reflected light, nor even the planets. They
were fiery, made out of the fire which the air carried
with it when forced beneath the earth by the upward
rush of fire at the first separation, as we saw above.
The fixed stars were attached to the frozen air; the
planets moved freely.’

Empedokles was acquainted (fr. 42) with the true
theory of solar eclipses, which, along with that of the
moon’s light, was the great discovery of this period.
He also knew (fr. 48) that night is the conical shadow
of the earth, and not a sort of exhalation.

Wind was explained from the opposite motions of
the fiery and airy hemispheres. Rain was caused by
the compression of the Air, which forced any water
there might be in it out of its pores in the form of
drops. Lightning was fire forced out from the clouds

in much the same way.*

1 Arist. de Sensu, 6. 446 ἃ 28; de An. B, 7. 418 Ὁ 20.

2 [Plut.] Strom. fr. 10 (Dox. p. 582, 12; R. P. 170 c) ; Diog. viii. 77 ;
Aet. ii. 31, 1 (cf. Dox. p. 63).

8 Aet. ii. 13, 2 and 11 (Dox. pp. 341 sqq.).

4 Aet. iii. 3, 7; Arist. AZeteor. B, 9. 369 Ὁ 12, with Alexander’s
commentary.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 277

The earth was at first mixed with water, but the
increasing compression caused by the velocity of the
world’s revolution made the water gush forth, so that
the sea is called “the sweat of the earth,” a phrase to
which Aristotle objects as a mere poetical metaphor.
The saltness of the sea was explained by the help of
this analogy.’

114. Empedokles went on to show how the four
elements, mingled in different proportions, gave rise
‘to perishable things, such .as bones, flesh, and the like.
These, of course, are the work of Love; but this in no
way contradicts the view taken above as to the period
of evolution to which this world belongs. Love is by
no means banished from the world yet, though one
day it will be. At present, it is still able to form
combinations of elements; but, just because Strife is
ever increasing, they are all perishable.

The possibility of organic combinations depends
upon the fact that there is still water in the earth, and
even fire (fr. 52). The warm springs of Sicily were a
proof of this, not to speak of Etna. These springs
Empedokles appears to have explained by one of his
characteristic images, drawn this time from the heating
of warm baths.” It will be noted that his similes
are nearly all drawn from human inventions and
manufactures.

115. Plants and animals were formed from the
four elements under the influence of Love and Strife.

1 Arist. Meteor. B, 3. 357 a 24; Aet. iii. 16,3 (R. P. 170 Ὁ). Cf. the
clear reference in Arist. Meteor. B, 1. 353 Ὁ 11.

2 Seneca, Q. Wat. iii. 24: ‘‘ facere solemus dracones et miliaria et
complures formas in quibus aere tenui fistulas struimus per declive circum-
datas, ut saepe eundem ignem ambiens aqua per tantum fluat spatii
quantum efficiendo calori sat est. frigida itaque intrat, effluit calida.
idem sub terra Empedocles-existimat fieri.”

Organic com-
binations.

Plants,

278 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The fragments which deal with trees and plants
are 77-81; and these, taken along with certain
Aristotelian statements and the doxographical tradition,
enable us to make out pretty fully what the theory
was. The text of Aetios is very corrupt here ; but it
may, perhaps, be rendered as follows :—

Empedokles says that trees were the first living creatures
to grow up out of the earth, before the sun was spread out,
and before day and night were distinguished ; that, from the
symmetry of their mixture, they contain the proportion of
male and female ; that they grow, rising up owing to the heat
which isin the earth, so that they are parts of the earth just
as embryos are parts of the uterus; that fruits are excretions
of the water and fire in plants, and that those which have a
deficiency of moisture shed their leaves when that is evaporated
by the summer heat, while those which have more moisture
remain evergreen, as in the case of the laurel, the olive, and
the palm; that the differences in taste are due to variations
in the particles contained in the earth and to the plants
drawing different particles from it, as in the case of vines;
for it is not the difference of the vines that makes wine good,
but that of the soil which nourishes them. Aet. v. 26, 4
(R. P. 172).

Aristotle finds fault with Empedokles for explaining
the double growth of plants, upwards and downwards,
by the opposite natural motions of the earth and fire
contained in them.! For “natural motions” we must,
of course, substitute the attraction of like for like
(δ 109). Theophrastos says much the same thing.”
The growth of plants, then, is to be regarded as an
incident in that separation of the elements which
Strife is bringing about. Some of the fire which is
still beneath the earth (fr. 52) meeting in its upward

1 Arist. de An. B, 4. 415 Ὁ 28.
2 Theophr. ae causzis plantarum, i. 12, 5.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 279

course with earth, still moist with water and “ running”
down so as to “reach its own kind,” unites with it,
under the influence of the Love still left in the world,
to form a temporary combination, which we call a tree
or a plant.

At the beginning of the pseudo-Aristotelian 77veatzse
on Plants," we are told that Empedokles attributed
desire, sensation, and the capacity. for pleasure and
pain to plants, and he rightly saw that the two sexes
are combined in them. This is mentioned by Aetios,
and discussed in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. If
we may so far trust that Byzantine translation from a
Latin version of the Arabic,? we get a most valuable
hint as to the reason. Plants, we are there told, came
into being “in an imperfect state of the world,”® in
fact, at a time when Strife had not so far prevailed as
to differentiate the sexes. We shall see that the same
thing applies to the original race of animals in this
world. It is strange that Empedokles never observed
the actual process of generation in plants, but confined
himself to the statement that they spontaneously “ bore
eggs” (fr. 79), that is to say, fruit.

116. The fragments which deal with the evolution
of animals (57-62) must be understood in the light
of the statement (fr. 17) that there is a double coming
into being and a double passing away of mortal things.
Empedokles describes two processes of evolution,
which take exactly opposite courses, one of them

1 [Arist.] de plantis, A, 1. 815 a 15.

® Alfred the Englishman translated the Arabic version into Latin in
the reign of Henry III. It was retranslated from this version into Greek
at the Renaissance by a Greek resident in Italy.

3 A, 2. 817 Ὁ 35, ‘mundo. . . diminuto et non perfecto in complemento
suo” (Alfred).

Evolution
of animals.

280 EARLY. GREEK PHILOSOPHY

belonging to the period of Love and the other to that
of Strife. The four stages of this double evolution
are accurately distinguished in a passage of Aetios,’ and
we shall see that there is evidence for referring two of
them to the second period of the world’s history and
two to the fourth.

The first stage is that in which the various parts of
animals arise separately. It is that of heads without
necks, arms without shoulders, and eyes without fore-
heads (fr. 57). It is clear that this must be the first
stage in what we have called the fourth period of the
world’s history, that in which Love is coming in and
Strife passing out. Aristotle distinctly refers it to the
period of Love, by which, as we have seen, he means
the period when Love is increasing.” It is in
accordance with this that he also says these scattered
members were subsequently put together by Love.®

The second stage is that in which the scattered
limbs are united. At first, they were combined in all
possible ways (fr. 59). There were oxen with human
heads, creatures with double faces and double breasts,
and all manner of monsters (fr. 61). Those of them
that were fitted to survive did so, while the rest
perished. That is how the evolution of animals took
place in the period of Love.*

1 Aet. v. 19, 5 (R. P. 173). Plato has made use of the idea of reversed
evolution in the Poléticus myth.

2 Arist. de Caelo, T, 2. 300 Ὁ 29 (R. P. 173 a). Cf. de Gen. An. A, 17.
722 Ὁ 17, where fr. 57 is introduced by the words καθάπερ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς
γεννᾷ ἐπὶ τῆς Φιλότητος. Simplicius, de Cae/o, p. 587, 18, expresses the
same thing by saying μουνομελῇ ἔτι τὰ γυῖα ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ Νείκους διακρίσεως
ὄντα ἐπλανᾶτο.

3 Arist. de An. I’, 6. 430 a 30(R. P. 173 a).

4 This is well put by Simplicius, de Caelo, p. 587, 20. It is dre τοῦ
Neixous ἐπεκράτει λοιπὸν ἡ Φιλότης . . . ἐπὶ THs Φιλότητος οὖν ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς
ἐκεῖνα εἶπεν, οὐχ ὡς ἐπικρατούσης ἤδη τῆς Φιλότητος, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς μελλούσης

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 281

The third stage belongs to the period when the
unity of the Sphere is being destroyed by Strife. It is,
therefore, the first stage in the evolution of our present
world. It begins with “whole-natured forms” in which
there is not as yet any distinction of sex or species.’
They are composed of earth and water, and are
produced by the upward motion of fire which is seeking
to reach its like.

In the fourth stage, the sexes and species have
been separated, and new animals no longer arise from
the elements, but are produced by generation. We
shall see presently how Empedokles conceived this
to operate.

In both these processes of evolution, Empedokles
was guided by the idea of the survival of the fittest.
Aristotle severely criticises this. “We may suppose,”
he says, “ that all things have fallen out accidentally just
as they would have done if they had been produced for
some end. Certain things have been preserved because
they had spontaneously acquired a fitting structure,
while those which were not so put together have
perished and are perishing, as Empedokles says of the
oxen with human faces.”* This, according to Aristotle,
leaves too much to chance. One curious instance has
been preserved. Vertebration was explained by saying
that an early invertebrate animal tried to turn round
and broke its back in sodoing. This was a favourable
variation and so survived.’ It should be noted that it
clearly belongs to the period of Strife, and not, like ᾿

ἐπικρατεῖν. In Phys. p. 371, 33, he says the oxen with human heads were
κατὰ τὴν τῆς Pirlas ἀρχήν.

1 Cf. Plato, Symp. 189 6.

2 Arist. Phys. B, 8. 198 Ὁ 29 (R. P. 173).

3 Arist. de Part. An. A, 1. 640 a 19.

Physiology.

282 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the oxen with human heads, to that of Love. The
survival of the fittest was the law of both processes of
evolution.

117. The distinction of the sexes was an important
result of the gradual differentiation brought about by
the entrance of Strife into the world. Empedokles
differed from the theory given by Parmenides in his
Second Part (§ 95) in holding that the warm element
preponderated in the male sex, and that males were
conceived in the warmer part of the uterus (fr. 65).
The foetus was formed partly from the male and partly
from the female semen (fr. 63); and it was just the fact
that the substance of a new being’s body was. divided
between the male and the female that produced desire
when the two were brought together by sight (fr.64). A
certain symmetry of the pores in the male and female
semen is, of course, necessary for procreation, and from
its absence Empedokles explained the sterility of mules.
The children most resemble that parent who contributed
most to their formation. The influence of statues and
pictures was also noted, however, as modifying the
appearance of the offspring. Twins and triplets were
due to a superabundance and division of the semen.'

As to the growth of the foetus in the uterus, Em-
pedokles held that it was enveloped in a membrane,
and that its formation began on the thirty-sixth day
and was completed on the forty-ninth. The heart was

formed first, the nails and such things last. © Respira-

tion did not begin till the time of birth, when the fluids
round the fcetus were withdrawn. Birth took place
in the ninth or seventh month, because the day had

1 Aet. v. 10, 1; 11,1; 12, 2; 14, 2. Cf. Fredrich, Aippokratische
Untersuchungen, pp. 126 564,

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 4283

been originally nine months long, and afterwards
seven. Milk arises on the tenth day of the eighth
month (fr. 68).

Death was the final separation by Strife of the fire
and earth in the body, each of which had.all along
been striving to “reach its own kind.” Sleep was a
temporary separation to a certain extent of the fiery
element.? At death the animal is resolved into its
elements, which perhaps enter into fresh combinations,
perhaps become permanently united with “their own
kind.” There can be no question here of an immortal
soul.

Even in life, we may see the attraction of like to
like operating in animals just as it did in the upward
and downward growth of plants. Hair is the same
thing as foliage (fr. 82); and, generally speaking, the
fiery part of animals tends upwards and the earthy
part downwards, though there are exceptions, as may
be seen in the case of certain -shell-fish (fr. 76), where
the earthy part is above. These exceptions are only
possible because there is still a great deal of Love
in the world. We also see the attraction of like for
like in the different habits of the various species of
animals. Those that have most fire in them fly up
into the air; those in which earth preponderates take
to the earth, as did the dog which always sat upon a
tile.® Aquatic animals are those in which water pre-
dominates. This does not, however, apply to fishes,
which are very fiery, and take to the water to cool
themselves.‘

1 Aet. v. 15, 33 21,1 (Dox. p. 190).

2 Aet. v. 25, 4 (Dox. p. 437).

3 Aet. v. 19, 5 (Dox. p. 431). Cf. Eth. Σιμά. H, 1. 1235 a 11.
4 Arist: de Respir. 14. 477 a 32; Theophr. de causis plant. i. 21.

Perception.

284 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Empedokles paid great attention to the subject of
respiration, and his very ingenious explanation of it has
been preserved in a continuous form (fr. 100). We
breathe, he held, through all the pores of the skin, not
merely through the organs of respiration. The cause
of the alternate inspiration and expiration of the breath
was the movement of the blood from the heart to
the surface of the body and back again, which was
explained by the 2lepsydra.

The nutrition and growth of animals is, of course,
to be explained from the attraction of like to like.
Each part of the body has pores into which the appro-
priate food will fit. Pleasure and pain were derived
from the absence or presence of like elements, that is, of
nourishment which would fit the pores. Tears and
sweat arose from a disturbance which curdled the blood ;
they were, so to say, the whey of the blood.’

118. For the theory of perception held by Empe-
dokles we have the original words of Theophrastos :—

Empedokles speaks in the same way of all the senses, and
says that perception is due to the “effluences” fitting into
the passages of each sense. And that is why one cannot
judge the objects of another; for the passages of some of
them are too wide and those of others too narrow for the
sensible object, so that the latter either goes through without
touching or cannot enter at all. ΚΕ. P. 177 Ὁ.

He tries, too, to explain the nature of sight. He says that
the interior of the eye consists of fire, while round about it is
earth and air,? through which its rarity enables the fire to
pass like the light in lanterns (fr. 84). The passages of the

1 Nutrition, Aet. v. 27, 1; pleasure and pain, Aet. iv. 9, 15; v. 28, 13
tears and sweat, v. 22, I.

2 That is, watery vapour, not the elemental air or αἰθήρ (8 107). It is
identical with the ‘‘ water’ mentioned below. It is unnecessary, therefore,
to insert καὶ ὕδωρ after πῦρ with Karsten and Diels.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 285

fire and water are arranged alternately ; through those of the
fire we perceive light objects, through those of the water,
dark ; each class of objects fits into each class of passages,
and the colours are carried to the sight by effluence.
R. P. 2,

But eyes are not all composed in the same way ; some are
composed of like elements and some of opposite ; some have
the fire in the centre and some on the outside. That is why
some animals are keen-sighted by day and others by night.
Those which have less fire are keen-sighted in the daytime,
for the fire within is brought up to an equality by that
without ; those which have less of the opposite (2.6. water), by
night, for then their deficiency is supplemented. But, in
the opposite case, each will behave in the opposite manner.
Those eyes in which fire predominates will be dazzled in the
daytime, since the fire being still further increased will stop
up and occupy the pores of the water. Those in which water
predominates will, he says, suffer the same at night, for the
fire will be obstructed by the water. And this goes on till
the water is separated off by the air, for in each case it is
the opposite which is a remedy. The best tempered and
the most excellent vision is one composed of both in
equal proportions. This is practically what he says about
sight.

Hearing, he holds, is produced by sound outside, when
the air moved by the voice sounds inside the ear; for the
sense of hearing is a sort of bell sounding inside the ear,
which he calls a “fleshy sprout.” When the air is set in
motion it strikes upon the solid parts and produces a sound.!
Smell, he holds, arises from respiration, and that is why those
smell most keenly whose breath has the most violent motion,
and why most smell comes from subtle and light bodies. As
to touch and taste, he does not lay down how nor by means
of what they arise, except that he gives us an explanation
applicable to all, that sensation is produced by adaptation to
the pores. Pleasure is produced by what is like in its
elements and their mixture; pain, by what is opposite.
R. P. 2.

1 Beare, p. 96, n. 1. 2 Lbid. p. 133.

i ee -- {ὃ

——— νων

7 ὩΣ

286 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

And he gives a precisely similar account of thought and
ignorance. ‘Thought arises from what is like and ignorance
from what is unlike, thus implying that thought is the same,
or nearly the same, as perception. For after enumerating
μὸν we know each thing by means of itself, he adds, “for all
things are fashioned and fitted together out of these, and it
is by these men think and feel pleasure and pain” (fr. 107).
And for this reason we think chiefly with our blood, for in
it of all parts of the body all the elements are most completely
mingled. ἈΚ. P. 178. .

All, then, in whom the mixture is equal or nearly so, and
in whom the elements are neither at too, great intervals nor
too small or too large, are the wisest and have the most exact
perceptions ; and those who come next to them are wise in
proportion. ‘Those who are in the opposite condition are the
most foolish. Those whose elements are separated by intervals
and rare are dull and laborious; those in whom they are
closely packed and broken into minute particles are impulsive,
they attempt many things and finish few because of the
rapidity with which their blood moves. Those who have a
well-proportioned mixture in some one part of their bodies
will be clever in that respect. That is why some are good
orators and some good artificers. The latter have a good
mixture in their hands, and the former in their tongues, and
so with all other special capacities. R. P. 22.

y Perception, then, is due to the meeting of an element
“| in us with the same element outside. This takes place
when the pores of the organ of sense are neither too
large nor too small for the “effluences” which all
things are constantly giving off (fr. 89). Smell was
explained by respiration. The breath drew in along
with it the small particles which fit into the pores.
From Aetios’ we learn that Empedokles proved this
by the example of people with a cold in their head,
who cannot smell, just because they have a difficulty

1 Aet. iv. 17, 2 (Dox. p. 407). Beare, p. 133.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 287

in breathing. We also see from fr. 101 that the
scent of dogs was referred to in support of the theory.
Empedokles seems to have given no detailed account
of smell, and did not refer to touch at all." Hearing
was explained by the motion of the air which struck
upon the cartilage inside the ear and made it swing .
and sound like a bell.’

The theory of vision® is more complicated ; and,
as Plato adopted most of it, it is of great importance
in the history of philosophy. The eye was conceived,
as by Alkmaion (ὃ 96),) to be composed of fire and
water. Just as in a lantern the flame is protected
from the wind by horn (fr. 84), so the fire in the iris
is protected from the water which surrounds it in the
pupil by membranes with very fine pores, so that,
while the fire can pass out, the water cannot get in.
Sight is produced by the fire inside the eye going forth
to meet the object. This seems strange to us, because
we are accustomed to the idea of images being
impressed upon the retina. But Jooking at a thing
no doubt seemed much more like an action proceeding
from the eye*than a mere passive state.

He was quite aware, too, that “effluences,” as he
called them, came from things to the eyes as well;
for he defined colours as “effluences from forms (or
‘things ’) fitting into the pores and perceived.”° It is
not quite clear how these two accounts of vision were
reconciled, or how far we are entitled to credit
Empedokles with the Platonic theory. The statements

1 Beare, pp. 161-3, 180-81. 2 Jbid. pp. 95 544.

3 Jbid. pp. 14 sqq. 4 Theophr. de sens. 26.

ὅ The definition is quoted from Gorgias in Plato, Men. 76d 4. All our
MSS. have doppoat σχημάτων, but Ven. T has in the margin vp.
χρημάτων, which may well be an old tradition, The Ionic for “things”
is χρήματα. See Diels, Empedokles und Gorgias, p. 439.

Theology and

religion.

288 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

which have been quoted seem to imply something very
like it.’

_Theophrastos tells us that Empedokles made no
distinction between thought and perception, a remark
already made by Aristotle?” The chief seat of per-
ception was the blood, in which the four elements are
most evenly mixed, and especially the blood near the
heart (fr. 105). This does not, however, exclude the
idea that other parts of the body may perceive also ;
indeed, Empedokles held that all things have their
share of thought (fr. 103). But the blood was specially
sensitive because of its finer mixture.* From this it
naturally follows that Empedokles adopted the view,
already maintained in the Second Part of the poem of
Parmenides (fr. 16), that our knowledge varies with
the varying constitution of our bodies (fr. 106). This
consideration became very important later on as one
of the foundations of scepticism; but Empedokles
himself only drew from it the conclusion that we must
make the best use we can of our senses, and check one
by the other (fr. 4).

119. The theoretical theology of Empedokles
reminds us of Xenophanes, his practical religious
teaching of Pythagoras and the Orphics. We are told
in the earlier part of the poem that certain “gods” are
composed of the elements; and that therefore though

1 See Beare, Zlementary Cognition, Ὁ. 18.

2 Arist. de An. Τ', 3. 427 a 21.
3 R. P. 178 a. This was the characteristic doctrine of the Sicilian

_ school, from whom it passed to Aristotle and the Stoics. Plato and

Hippokrates, on the other hand, adopted the view of Alkmaion (§ 97) that
the brain was the seat of consciousness. Kritias (Arist. de Amz. A, 2.
405 b 6) probably got the Sicilian. doctrine from Gorgias. At a later date,
Philistion of Syracuse, Plato’s friend, substituted the ψυχικὸν πνεῦμα
(‘animal spirits ”) which circulated along with the blood.

4 Beare, p. 253.

EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS 289

"they “live long lives” they must pass away (fr. 21).
We have seen that the elements and the Sphere are also
called gods, but that is in quite another sense of the word.
If we turn to the religious teaching of the
Purifications, we find that everything turns on the
doctrine of transmigration. On the general significance
of this enough has been said above (§ 42); the details
given by Empedokles are peculiar. According to a
decree of Necessity, “daemons” who have sinned are
forced to wander from their home in heaven for three
times ten thousand seasons (fr. 115). He himself is
such an exiled divinity, and has fallen from his high
estate because he put his trust in raving Strife. The
four elements toss him from one to the other with
loathing ; and so he has not only been a human being
and a plant, but even a fish. The only way to purify
oneself from the taint of original sin was by the culti-
vation of ceremonial holiness, by purifications, and
abstinence from animal flesh. For the animals are our
kinsmen (fr. 137), and it is parricide to lay hands on
them. In all this there are, no doubt, certain points of
contact with the cosmology. We have the “mighty
oath” (fr. 115; cf. fr. 30), the four elements, Hate as
the source of original sin, and Kypris as queen in the
Golden Age (fr. 128). But these points are neither
fundamental nor of great importance. And it cannot
be denied that there are really contradictions between
the two poems. That, however, is just what we should
expect to find. All through this period, there seems
to have been a gulf between men’s religious beliefs, if
they had any, and their cosmological views. The few
points of contact which we have mentioned may have
been sufficient to hide this from Empedokles himself.
19

-

Ἔν “a

CHAPTER'Vi

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI

Date. 120. ALL that Apollodoros tells us with regard to the |

date of Anaxagoras seems to rest upon the authority
of Demetrios Phalereus, who said of him, in the
Register of Archons, that he began to study philosophy,
at the age of twenty, in the archonship of Kallias or
Kalliades at Athens (480-79 B.c.).’ This date was
probably derived from a calculation based upon the
philosopher's age at the time of his trial, which
Demetrios had every opportunity of learning from
sources no longer extant. Apollodoros inferred that
Anaxagoras was born in Ol. LXX. (500-496 B.C.),
and he adds that he died at the age of seventy-two in
Ol. LXXXVIII. 1 (428-27 B.c.).? He doubtless thought
it natural that he should not survive Perikles, and still
more natural that he should die the year Plato was
born.2 We have a further statement, of doubtful
origin, but probably due to Demetrios also, that
Anaxagoras lived at Athens for thirty years. This

1 Diog. ii. 7 (ΕΒ. P. 148), with the perfectly certain emendation referred to
ib. 148 c. The Athens of 480 B.c. would hardly be a suitable place to
‘begin philosophising”?! For the variation in the archon’s name, see
Jacoby, p. 244, ἢ. I.

- 2 We must read ὀγδοηκοστῆς with Meursius to make the figures come
right. /

3 On the statements of Apollodoros, see Jacoby, pp. 244 sqq.

290

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 291

may be a genuine tradition;' and if so, we get
from about 462 to 432 B.C. as the time he lived
there.

There can be no doubt that these dates are very
nearly right. Aristotle tells us? that Anaxagoras was
older than Empedokles, who was born about 490 B.C.
(§ 98); and Theophrastos said* that Empedokles was
born “not long after Anaxagoras.” Demokritos, too,
said that he himself was a young man in the old age
of Anaxagoras, and he must have been born about
460 B.c.4 |

121. Anaxagoras was born at Klazomenai, and
Theophrastos tells us that his father’s name was

Hegesiboulos.2 The names of both father and son

have an aristocratic sound, and we may assume they
belonged to a family which had won distinction in the
State. Nor need we reject the tradition that
Anaxagoras neglected his possessions to follow
science.® It is certain, at any rate, that in the fourth
century he was already regarded as the type of the
man who leads the “ theoretic life.” 7 Of course the story
of his contempt for worldly goods was seized on later

Diog., Joc. cit. In any case, it is not a mere calculation of Apollodoros’s ;
for he would certainly have made Anaxagoras forty years old at the date of
his arrival in Athens, and this would give at most twenty-eight years for his
residence there. The trial cannot have been later than 432 B.C., and may
have been earlier.

* Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 a 11 (R. P. 150 a).

3 Phys. Op. fr. 3 (Dox. p. 477), ap. Simpl. Phys. p. 25, 19 (R. P.
162 e).

4 Diog. ix. 41 (R. P. 187). On the date of Demokritos, see Chap. IX.
§ 171.

> Phys. Op. fr. 4 (Dox. p. 478), repeated by the doxographers.

5 Plato, Hipp. ma. 283 a, τοὐναντίον γὰρ ᾿Αναξαγόρᾳ φασὶ συμβῆναι
ἢ ὑμῖν καταλειφθέντων γὰρ αὐτῷ πολλῶν χρημάτων καταμελῆσαι καὶ
ἀπολέσαι πάντα" οὕτως αὐτὸν ἀνόητα σοφίζεσθαι. Cf. Plut. Per. 16.

7 Arist. Hth. Nic. K, 9. 1179 4 13. Cf. Eth. Hud. A, 4. 1215 Ὁ 6
and 15, 1216 ἃ 10.

Early life.

Relation to the
Ionic school.

292 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

by the historical novelist and tricked out with the
usual apophthegms. These do not concern us here.

One incident belonging to the early manhood of
Anaxagoras is recorded, namely, his observation of the
huge meteoric stone which fell into the Aigospotamos
in 468-67 B.c.' Our authorities tell us that he predicted
this phenomenon, which is plainly absurd. But we
shall see reason to believe that it may have occasioned
one of his most striking departures from the earlier
cosmology, and led to his adoption of the very view
for which he was condemned at Athens. At all events,
the fall of the stone made a profound impression at the
time, and it was still shown to tourists in the days of
Pliny and Plutarch.’

122. The doxographers speak of Anaxagoras as
the pupil of Anaximenes.* This is, of course, out of
the question; Anaximenes most probably died before
Anaxagoras was born. But it is not enough to say
that the statement arose from the fact that the name of
Anaxagoras followed that of Anaximenes in the
Successtons. That is true, no doubt; but it is not the
whole truth. We have its original source in a fragment
of Theophrastos himself, which states that Anaxagoras
had been “an associate of the philosophy of Anaxi-

1 Diog. ii. 10 (R. P. 149 a). Pliny, WV. Z. ii. 149, gives the date as Ol.
LXXVIII. 2; and Eusebios gives it under Ol. LXXVIII. 3. But cf.
Marm. Par. 57, ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἐν Αἰγὸς ποταμοῖς ὁ λίθος ἔπεσε. . . ἔτη HHI,
ἄρχοντος ᾿Αθήνησι Θεαγενίδου, which is 468-67 B.c. The text of Diog.
ii. 11 is corrupt.. For suggested restorations, see Jacoby, p. 244, n. 2; and
Diels, Vors. p. 294, 28.

2 Pliny, /oc. cz¢., ‘‘ qui lapis etiam nunc ostenditur magnitudine vehis.
colore adusto.” Cf. Plut. Zys. 12, kal δείκνυται. . . ἔτι viv.

3 Cicero, de nat. D. i. 26 (after Philodemos), ‘‘ Anaxagoras qui accepit
ab Anaximene disciplinam (2.6. διήκουσε) ; Diog. i. 13 (R. P. 4) and ii. 6 3:
Strabo, xiv. p. 645, Κλαζομένιος δ᾽ ἣν ἀνὴρ ἐπιφανὴς ᾿Αναξαγόρας ὁ φυσικός,
᾿Αγναξιμένους ὁμιλητής; Euseb. 2.32. p. 504; ee Hist. Phil. 33.
Augustine, de Civ. Det, viii. 2.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 293

menes.”* Now this expression has a very distinct
meaning if we accept the view as to “schools” of
science set forth in the Introduction (§ XIV.). It means
that the old Ionic school survived the destruction of
Miletos in 494 B.C. and continued to flourish in
the other cities of Asia. It means, further, that it
produced no man of distinction after its third great re-
presentative, and that “the philosophy of Anaximenes ”
was still taught by whoever was now at the head of
the society.

At this point, it may be well to indicate briefly the
conclusions to which we shall come in the next few
chapters with regard to the development of philosophy
during the first half of the fifth century B.c. We shall
find that, while the old Ionic school was still capable
of training great men, it was now powerless to keep
them. Anaxagoras went his own way; Melissos
and Leukippos, though they still retained enough of
the old views to bear witness to the source of their
inspiration, were too strongly influenced by the Eleatic
dialectic to remain content with the theories of An-
aximenes. It was left to second-rate minds like
Diogenes to champion the orthodox system, while
third-rate minds like Hippon of Samos even went
back to the cruder theory of Thales. The details of
this anticipatory sketch will become clearer as we go
on; for the present, it is only necessary to call the
reader’s attention to the fact that the old Ionic Philo-
sophy now forms a sort of background to our story,

1 Phys. Op. fr. 4 (Dox. p. 478), ᾿Αναξαγόρας μὲν γὰρ ᾿Ηγησιβούλου
Κλαζομένιος κοινωνήσας τῆς ᾿Αναξιμένους φιλοσοφίας κιτ.λ. In his fifth
edition (p. 973, n. 2) Zeller adopts the view given in the text, and confirms

it by comparing the very similar statement as to Leukippos, κοινωνήσας
Παρμενίδῃ τῆς φιλοσοφίας. See below, Chap. IX. ὃ 172.

Anaxagoras
at Athens.

294 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

just as Orphic and Pythagorean religious ideas have
done in the preceding chapters.

123. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to take
up his abode at Athens. We are not to suppose,
however, that he was attracted thither by anything in
the character of the Athenians. No doubt Athens
had now become the political centre of the Hellenic
world ; but it had not yet produced a single scientific
man. On the contrary, the temper of the citizen body
was and remained hostile to free inquiry of any kind.
Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle fell victims in
different degrees to the bigotry of the democracy,
though, of course, their offence was political rather
than religious. They were condemned not as heretics,
but as innovators in the state religion. Still, as a
recent historian observes, “Athens in its flourishing
period was far from being a place for free inquiry to
thrive unchecked.”' It is this, no doubt, that has
been in the minds of those writers who have represented
philosophy as something un-Greek. It was in reality
thoroughly Greek, though it was thoroughly un-
Athenian.

It seems most reasonable to suppose that Perikles.
himself brought Anaxagoras to Athens, just as he
brought everything else he could. Holm has shown
with much skill how the aim of that great statesman
was, so to say, to Ionise his fellow-citizens, to impart
to them something of the flexibility and openness of
mind which characterised their kinsmen across the
sea. It is possible that it was Aspasia of Miletos who
introduced the Ionian philosopher to the Periklean

1 Holm, Gr. Gesch, ii. 334. The whole chapter is well worth reading
in this connexion.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 295

circle, of which he was henceforth a chief ornament. The
Athenians in derision gave him the nickname of Nous.'

The close relation in which Anaxagoras stood to
Perikles is placed beyond the reach of doubt by the
testimony of Plato. In the Phaedrus® he makes
Sokrates say: “For all arts that are great, there is
need of talk and discussion on the parts of natural
' science that deal with things on high; for that seems
to be the source which inspires high-mindedness and
effectiveness in every direction. Perikles added this
very acquirement to his original’ gifts. He fell in, it
seems, with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man ;
and, satiating himself with the theory of things on high,
and having attained 'to a knowledge of the true nature
of intellect and folly, which were just what the dis-
courses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew
from that source whatever was of a nature to further
him in the art of speech.”

A more difficult question is the alleged relation of
Euripides to Anaxagoras. The oldest authority for
it is Alexander of Aitolia, poet and librarian, who
lived at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphos (c. 280 B.C.).
He referred to Euripides as the “nursling of brave
Anaxagoras.”* A great deal of ingenuity has been
expended in trying to find the system of Anaxagoras
in the choruses of Euripides; but, it must now be
admitted, without result* The famous fragment on

Plut. Per. 4 (R. P. 148 c). I follow Zeller, p. 975, n. 1 (Eng. trans.
ii. p. 327, ἢ. 4), in regarding the sobriquet as derisive.

2 270 a(R. P. 148 c).

3. Gell. xv. 20, ‘‘ Alexander autem Aetolus hos de Euripide versus
composuit”; ὁ δ᾽ ᾿Αναξαγόρου τρόφιμος χαιοῦ (so Valckenaer for ἀρχαίου)
K.T.A.

* The question was first raised by Valckenaer (Diatribe, p. 26). Cf.
also Wilamowitz, Analecta Euripidea, pp. 162 sqq.

The trial.

296 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the blessedness of the scientific life might just as well
refer to any other cosmologist as to Anaxagoras, and
indeed suggests more naturally a thinker of a more
primitive type.’ On the other hand, there is one
fragment which distinctly expounds the central thought
of Anaxagoras, and could hardly be referred to any
one else.” We may conclude, then, that Euripides
knew the philosopher and his views, but it is not safe
to go further.

124. Shortly before the outbreak of the Pelopon-
nesian War, the enemies of Perikles began a series of
attacks upon him through his friends.* Pheidias was
the first to suffer, and Anaxagoras was the next. That
he was an object of special hatred to the religious
party need not surprise us, even though the charge
made against him does not suggest that he went out
of his way to hurt their susceptibilities. The details
of the trial are somewhat obscure, but we can make
out a few points. The first step taken was the intro-
duction of a psephism by Diopeithes—the same whom
Aristophanes laughs at in 7he Birds *—enacting that an
impeachment should be brought against those who did
not practise religion, and taught theories about “the
things on high.”® What happened at the actual trial
is very differently related. Our. authorities give

See Introd. p. 12, n. 1. The fragment is quoted R. P. 148 c. The

words ἀθανάτου φύσεως and κόσμον ἀγήρω carry us back rather to the
older Milesians.

2 R. P. 150 b.

3. Both Ephoros (represented by Diod. xii. 38) and the source of Plut.
Per. 32 made these attacks immediately precede the war. This may,
however, be pragmatic ; they perhaps occurred earlier.

4 Birds, 988. Aristophanes had no respect for orthodoxy when
combined with democratic opinions.

5 Plut. Per. 32 (R. P. 148), where some of the original words have been
preserved. The phrase τὰ θεῖα and the word μετάρσια are archaisms from
the ψήφισμα.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 297

hopelessly conflicting accounts.’ It is no use attempting
to reconcile these ; it is enough to insist upon what is
certain. Now we know from Plato what the accusation
was. It was that Anaxagoras taught the sun was a
red-hot stone, and the moon earth; and we shall see
that he certainly did hold these views (§ 133). For
the rest, the most plausible account is that he was got
out of prison and sent away by Perikles.2 We know
that such things were possible at Athens.

Driven from his adopted home, Anaxagoras
naturally went back to Ionia, where at least he would
be free to teach what he pleased. He settled at
Lampsakos, and we shall see reason to believe that he
founded a school there.* Probably he did not live
long after his exile. The Lampsakenes erected an
altar to his memory in their market-place, dedicated to
Mind and Truth; and the anniversary of his death was
long kept as a holiday for school-children, it was said
at his own request.°

1 These accounts are repeated by Diog. ii. 12-14. It is worth while to

put the statements of Satyros and Sotion side by side in order to show the
unsatisfactory character of the biographical tradition :—

Sotion. Satyros.
Accuser. Kleon. Thoukydides s. of Melesias.
Charge. Calling the sun a red-hot Impiety and Medism.
mass,
Sentence. Fined five talents. Sentenced to death in absence.

Hermippos represents Anaxagoras as already in prison under sentence of
death when Perikles shamed the people into letting him off. Lastly,
Hieronymos says he never was condemned at all. Perikles brought him
into court thin and wasted by disease, and the judges acquitted him out of
compassion! The Medism alleged by Satyros no doubt comes from
Stesimbrotos, who made Anaxagoras the friend of Themistokles instead
of Perikles. This, too, explains the accuser’s name (Busolt, Gr. Gesch.
p- 306, n. 3).

2 Apol, 26 d.

% Plut. Wie. 23 (R. P. 148 c). Cf. Per. 32 (R. P. 148).

4 See the account of Archelaos in Chap. X. § 191.

Ὁ The oldest authority for the honours paid to Anaxagoras is Alkidamas,

Writings.

iL-

298 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY |

125. Diogenes includes Anaxagoras in his list of
philosophers who left only a single book, and he has
also preserved the accepted criticism of it, namely, that
it was written “in a lofty and agreeable style.”*
There is no evidence of any weight to set against this
testimony, which comes ultimately from the librarians
of Alexandria.” The story that Anaxagoras wrote a
treatise on perspective as applied to scene-painting is
° and the statement that he com-

posed a mathematical work dealing with the quadrature

most improbable ;

of the circle is due to misunderstanding of an expres-
sion in Plutarch. We learn from the passage in

the Afology, referred to above, that the works of

Anaxagoras could be bought at Athens for a single
drachma ; and that the book was of some length may
be gathered from the way in which Plato goes on to
speak of it. In the sixth century A.D. Simplicius had
access to a copy, doubtless in the library of the

Academy ;° and it is to him we owe the preservation

of all our fragments, with one or two very doubtful

the pupil of Gorgias, who said these were still kept up in his own time.
Arist. Rhet. B, 23. 1398 Ὁ 15.

1 Diog. i. 16; ii. 6 (R. P. 5 3 153).

2 Schaubach (4. Claz. Fragm. p. 57) fabricated a work entitled τὸ
πρὸς Λεχίνεον out of the pseudo-Aristotelian de plantis, 817 ἃ 27. But the
Latin version of Alfred, which is the original of the Greek, has simply e¢
tdeo dictt lechineon ; and this appears to be due to a failure to make out the
Arabic text from which the Latin version was derived. Cf. Meyer, Gesch..
α΄. Bot. i. 60.

* It comes from Vitruvius, vii. pr. 11. A forger, seeking to decorate his
production with a great name, would think naturally of the philosopher
who was said to have taught Euripides,

* Plut. de Exzlio, 607 f. The words merely mean that he used to draw
mathematical figures relating to the quadrature of the circle on the prison
floor.

ἢ Apol. 26 d-e. The expression βιβλία perhaps implies that it filled
more than one roll.

§ Simplicius also speaks of βιβλία.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 299

exceptions. Unfortunately his quotations seem to be
confined to the First Book, that dealing with general
principles, so that we are left somewhat in the dark
with regard to the treatment of details. This is the
more unfortunate, as it was Anaxagoras who first gave
the true theory of the moon’s light and, therefore, the
true theory of eclipses.

126. I give the fragments according to the text and
arrangement of Diels, who has made some of them
completely intelligible for the first time.

(1) All things were together infinite both in number and
in smallness ; for the small too was infinite. And, when all
things were together, none of them could be distinguished for
their smallness. For air and aether prevailed over all things,
being both of them infinite; for amongst all things these are
the greatest both in quantity and size. R. P. 151.

(2) For air and aether are separated off from the mass
that surrounds the world, and the surrounding mass is infinite
in quantity. R. P. 2.

(3) Nor is there a least of what is small, but there is always
a smaller ; for it cannot be that what is should cease to be by
being cut.2 But there is also always something greater than
what is great, and it is equal to the small in amount, and,
compared with itself, each thing is both great and small.
R. P. 159 a.

(4) And since these things are so, we must suppose that
there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things
that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes
and colours and savours (R. P. 202.), and that men have been
formed in them, and the other animals that have life, and
that these men have inhabited cities and cultivated fields as

1 Simplicius tells us that this fragment was at the beginning of Book I.
The familiar sentence quoted by Diog. ii. 6 (R. P. 153) is not a fragment
of Anaxagoras, but a summary, like the πάντα ῥεῖ ascribed to Herakleitos
(Chap. III. p. 162).

2 Zeller’s τομῇ still seems to me a convincing correction of the MS. τὸ
μή, which Diels retains.

The
Fragments

300 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

with us ; and that they have a sun and a moon and the rest as

‘with us; and that their earth brings forth for them many

things of all kinds of which they gather the best together
into their dwellings, and use them (R. P. 160 b). Thus
much have I said with regard to separating off, to show that
it will not be only with us that things are separated off, but
elsewhere too. |

But before they were separated off, when all things were
together, not even was any colour distinguishable; for the
mixture of all things prevented it—of the moist and the dry,
and the warm and the cold, and the light and the dark, and
of much earth that was in it, and of a multitude of in-
numerable seeds in no way like each other. For none of the
other things either is like any other. And these things being
so, we must hold that all things are in the whole. R. P. 151.!

(5) And those things having been thus decided, we must
know that all of them are neither more nor less ; for it is not
possible for them to be more than all, and all are always equal.
2. eT,

(6) And since the portions of the great and of the small
are equal in amount, for this reason, too, all things will be in
everything ; nor is it possible for them to be apart, but all
things have a portion of everything. Since it is impossible
for there to be a least thing, they cannot be separated, nor
come to be by themselves ; but they must be now, just as they
were in the beginning, all together. And in all things many
things are contained, and an equal number both in the greater
and in the smaller of the things that are separated off.

(7) . . . So that we cannot know the number of the things
that are separated off, either in word or deed.

(8) The things that are in one world are not divided nor
cut off from one another with a hatchet, neither the warm
from the cold nor the cold from the warm. R. P. 155 e.

(9) . . . as these things revolve and are separated out by
the force and swiftness. And the swiftness makes the force.
Their swiftness is not like the swiftness of any of the things

11 had already pointed out in the first edition that Simplicius quotes
this three times as a continuous fragment, and that we are not entitled to
break it up. Diels now prints it as a single passage.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 301

that are now among men, but in every way many times as
swift.

(10) How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh
from what is not flesh? R. P. 155 f, ἢ. 1.

(11) In everything there is a portion of everything except
Nous, and there are some things in which there is Nous also.
R. P. 160 b.

(12) All other things partake in a portion of everything,
while Nous is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with
nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by
itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in
all things if it were mixed with any ; for in everything there is
a portion of everything, as has been said by me in what goes
before, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it
would have power over nothing in the same way that it has
now being alone by itself. For it is the thinnest of all things
and the purest, and it has all knowledge about everything
and the greatest strength ; and Nous has power over all things,
both greater and smaller, that have life. And Nous had
power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in
the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small
beginning ; but the revolution now extends over a larger space,
and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are
mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all
known by Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were
to be, and all things that were and are not now and that are,
and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun
and the moon, and the air and the aether that are separated off.
And this revolution caused the separating off, and the rare is
separated off from the dense, the warm from the cold, the light
from the dark, and the dry from the moist. And there are many
portions in many things, But no thing is altogether separated _
off nor distinguished from anything else except Nous. And all
Nous is alike, both the greater and the smaller; while nothing
else is like anything else, but each single thing is and was most —
manifestly those things of which it has most in it. R. P. 155.

(13) And when Nous began to move things, separating off
took place from all that was moved, and so far as Nous set in
motion all was separated. And as things were set in motion

Anaxagoras
and his §

predecessors.

302 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

and separated, the revolution caused them to be separated

much more.
(14) And Nous, which ever is, is certainly there, where

‘everything else is, in the surrounding mass, and in what has

been united with it and separated off from it.’

(15) The dense and the moist and the cold and the dark
came together where the earth is now, while the rare and the
warm and the dry (and the bright) went out towards the
further part of the aether.? R. P. 156.

(16) From these as they are separated off earth is solidified ;
for from mists water is separated off, and from water earth.
From the earth stones are solidified by the cold, and these rush
outwards more than water. R. P. 156.

(17) The Hellenes follow a wrong usage in speaking of
coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into
being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of
things that are. So they would be right to call coming into
being mixture, and passing away separation. R. P. 150.

(18) It is the sun that puts brightness into the moon.

(19) We call rainbow the reflexion of the sun in the clouds.
Now it is a sign of storm; for the water that flows round the
cloud causes wind or pours down in rain.

(20) With the rise of the Dogstar men begin the harvest ; ;
with its setting they begin to till the fields. It is hidden
for forty days and nights.

(21) From the weakness of our senses we are not able to
judge the truth.

(21a) What appears is a vision of the unseen,

(214) (We can make use of the lower animals) because we
use our Own experience and memory and wisdom and art.

(22) What is called “ birds’ milk” is the white of the egg.

127. The system of Anaxagoras, like that of
Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine
that corporeal substance is unchangeable with the

1 Simplicius gives fr. 14 thus (p. 157, 5): ὁ δὲ νοῦς ὅσα ἐστί τε κάρτα
καὶ νῦν ἐστιν. Diels now reads ὁ δὲ νοῦς, ds dc<el> ἐστι, τὸ κάρτα καὶ νῦν
ἐστιν. The correspondence of ἀεὶ. . . καὶ viv is strongly in favour of this.

2 On the text of fr. 15, see R. P. 156 a. I have followed Schorn in
adding καὶ τὸ λαμπρόν from Hippolytos.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 303

existence of a world which everywhere presents the ©

appearance of coming into being and passing away.
The conclusions of Parmenides are frankly accepted and
restated. Nothing can be added to all things ; for there
cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr. 5).
Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly
call coming into being and passing away is really
mixture and separation (fr. 17).

This last fragment reads almost like a prose para-
phrase of Empedokles (fr. 9); and it is in every way
probable that Anaxagoras derived his theory of
mixture from his younger contemporary, whose poem
was most likely published before his own treatise." We
have seen how Empedokles sought to save the world
of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot
and cold, moist and dry—were ¢hings, each one of
which was real inthe Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras
regarded this as inadequate. Everything changes into
everything else,’ the things of which the world is made
are not “cut off with a hatchet” (fr. 8) in this way.
On the contrary, the true formula must be: Zhere zs a
portion of everything in everything (fr. 11).

128. A part-of the argument by which Anaxagoras
sought to prove this point has been preserved in a
corrupt form by Aetios, and Diels has recovered some
of the original words from the scholiast on St. Gregory
Nazianzene. “ We use a simple nourishment,” he said,
“when we eat the fruit of Demeter or drink water. But
how can hair be made of what is not hair, or flesh of

1 This is doubtless the meaning of the words τοῖς ἔργοις ὕστερος in Arist.
Met. A, 3. 984 ἃ 12(R. P. 150 a); though ἔργα certainly does not mean
‘* writings” or ofera omnia, but simply ‘‘achievements.” The other
possible interpretations are ‘‘ more advanced in his views” and ‘‘ inferior
in his teaching ” (Zeller, p. 1023, n. 2).

* Arist. Phys. A, 4. 187 b 1 (R. P. 155 a).

‘« Everythin
in everythin;

cn IT

The portions.

304 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

what is not flesh?” (fr.10).". That is just the sort of
question the early Milesians must have asked, only the
physiological interest has now definitely replaced the
meteorological. We shall find a similar train of
reasoning in Diogenes of Apollonia (fr. 2).

The statement that there is a portion of everything
in everything, is not to be understood as referring
simply to the original mixture of things before the
formation of the worlds (fr. 1). On the contrary, even
now “all things are together,” and everything, however
small and however great, has an equal number of
“portions” (fr. 6). A smaller particle of matter could
only contain a smaller number of portions, if one of ~
those portions ceased to be; but if anything zs, in the
full Parmenidean sense, it is impossible that mere
division should make it cease to be (fr. 3). Matter is
infinitely divisible; for there is no least thing, any
more than there is a greatest. But however great or
small a body may be, it contains just the same number
of “ portions,” that is, a portion of everything.

129. What are these “things” of which everything
contains a portion? It once was usual to represent the
theory of Anaxagoras as if he had said that wheat, for
instance, contained small particles of flesh, blood, bones,
and the like; but we have just seen that matter is
infinitely divisible (fr. 3), and that there are as many
“portions” in the smallest particle as in the greatest
(fr. 6). This is fatal to the old view. If everything

were made up of minute particles of everything else,

we could certainly arrive at a point where everything
was “unmixed,” if only we carried division far enough.

1 Aet. i. 3, 5 (Dox. p. 279). See R. P. 155 fandn.1. I read καρπὸν
with Usener.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 305

This difficulty can only be solved in one way.' In
fr. 8 the examples given of things which are not “cut
off from one another with a hatchet” are the hot and
the cold ; and elsewhere (frs. 4, 15), mention is made of
the other traditional “ opposites.” Aristotle says that, if
we suppose the first principles to be infinite, they may
either be one in kind, as with Demokritos, or opposite.
Simplicius, following Porphyry and Themistios, refers
the latter view to Anaxagoras ;* and Aristotle himself
implies that the opposites of Anaxagoras had as much
right to be called first principles as the “homoeo-
meries.” *

It is of those opposites, then, and not of the different
forms of matter, that everything contains a portion.
Every particle, however large or however small,
contains every one of those opposite qualities. That
which is hot is also to a certain extent cold. Even
snow, Anaxagoras affirmed, was black ;° that is, even
the white contains a certain portion of the opposite
quality. It is enough to indicate the connexion of
this with the views of Herakleitos (§ 80).°

1 See Tannery, Sczence helléne, pp. 283sqq. [ still think that Tannery’s
interpretation is substantially right, though his statement of it requires
some modification.

2 Arist. Phys. A, 2. 184 Ὁ 21, ἢ οὕτως ὥσπερ Δημόκριτος, τὸ γένος ἕν,
σχήματι δὲ ἢ εἴδει διαφερούσας, ἢ καὶ ἐναντίας.

5 Phys. p. 44, 1. He goes on} to refer to θερμότητας.. .. καὶ
ψυχρότητας ξηρότητάς τε καὶ ὑγρότητας μανότητάς Te Kal πυκνότητας. καὶ τὰς
ἄλλας κατὰ ποιότητα ἐναντιότητας. He observes, however, that Alexander
rejected this interpretation and took διαφερούσας ἢ καὶ ἐναντίας closely
together as both referring to Demokritos.

* Phys. A, 4. 187 ἃ 25, τὸν μὲν (᾿Αναξαγόραν) ἄπειρα ποιεῖν τά τε ὁμοιομερῆ
καὶ τἀναντία. Aristotle’s own theory only differs from this in so far as he
makes ὕλῃ prior to the ἐναντία.

5 Sext, Pyrrh. i. 33 (R. P. 161 b).

§ The connexion was already noted by the eclectic Herakleitean to
whom I attribute Περὲ διαίτης, i. 3-4 (see above, Chap. III. p. 167, ἢ. 2).
Cf. the -words ἔχει δὲ ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων τὸ μὲν πῦρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος τὸ ὑγρόν “"

20

Seeds.

306 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

130. The difference, then, between the theory of
Anaxagoras and that of Empedokles is this. Empe-
dokles had taught that, if you divide the various things
which make up this world, and in particular the parts
of the body, such as flesh, bones, and the like, far
enough, you come to the four “roots” or elements,
which are, accordingly, the 3.
goras held that, however far you may divide any of
these things—and they are infinitely divisible—you
never come to a part sosmall that it does not contain
portions of all the opposites. The smallest portion of
bone is still bone. On the other hand, everything can
pass into everything else just because the “ seeds,” as
he called them, of each form of matter contain a
portion of everything, that is, of all the opposites, though
in different proportions. If we are to use the word
“element” at all, it is these seeds that are the elements
in the system of Anaxagoras.

Aristotle expresses this by saying that Anaxagoras
regards the ὁμοιομερῆ as στοιχεῖα We have seen
that the term στουχεῖον is of later date than Anaxagoras,
and it is natural to suppose that the word ὁμοιομερῆ is
also only Aristotle’s name for the “seeds.” In his own
system, the ὁμοιομερῆ are intermediate between the
elements (στοιχεῖα), of which they are composed, and

ἔνι yap ἐν πυρὶ ὑγρότης " τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς τὸ ξηρόν " ἕνι γὰρ καὶ
ἐν ὕδατι ξηρόν.

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. A, 1, 314 a 18, ὁ μὲν yap (Anaxagoras) τὰ
ὁμοιομερῆ στοιχεῖα τίθησιν, οἷον ὀστοῦν καὶ σάρκα καὶ μυελόν, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων
ὧν ἑκάστῳ συνώνυμον τὸ μέρος ἐστίν. This was, of course, repeated by
Theophrastos and the doxographers ; but it is to be noted that Aetios,
supposing as he does that Anaxagoras himself used the term, gives it an
entirely wrong meaning. He says that the ὁμοιομέρειαι were so called from
the likeness of the particles of the τροφή to those of the body (Dox. 279 a
21; R. P. 155 ἢ. Lucretius, i. 830 sqq. (R. P. 150 a) has a similar
account of the matter, derived from Epicurean sources. Obviously, it
cannot be reconciled with what Aristotle says.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 307

the organs (ὄργανα), which are composed of them.
The heart cannot be divided into hearts, but the parts
of flesh are flesh. That being so, Aristotle’s statement
is quite intelligible from his own point of view, but there
is no reason for supposing that Anaxagoras expressed
himself in that particular way. All we are entitled to
infer is that he said the“ seeds,” which he had. sub-
stituted for the “roots” of Empedokles, were not the
opposites i in a state of separation, but each contained a
portion of them all. If Anaxagoras had used the
term “homoeomeries”' himself, it would be strange
that Simplicius should quote no fragment containing it.

The difference between the two systems may also
be regarded from another point of view. Anaxagoras
was not obliged by his theory to regard the elements
of Empedokles as primary, a view ‘to which there were
obvious objections, especially in the case of earth. He
explained them in quite another way. Though every-
thing has a portion of everything” in it, things a appear to
be that of which there is most in them (fr. 12 sud fin.).
‘We may say, then, that Air is that in which there is most
cold, Fire that in which there is most heat, and so on,
without giving up-the view that there is a portion of
cold in the fire and a portion of heat in the air.2 The
great masses which Empedokles had taken for elements
are really vast collections of all manner of “seeds.”
Each of them is, in fact, a πανσπερμία."

1 It is more likely that we have a trace of the terminology of Anaxagoras
himself in Περὶ διαίτης, 3, μέρεα μερέων, ὅλα ὅλων.

2 Cf. above, p. 305.

8 Arist. de Gen. Corr. A, 1. 314.229. The word πανσπερμία was used
by Demokritos (Arist. de Am. 404 a 8; R. P. 200), and it occurs in the
Περὶ διαίτης (oc. εἶΐ.). It seems natural to suppose that it was used by
Anaxagoras himself, as he used the term σπέρματα. Much difficulty has
been caused by the apparent inclusion of Water and Fire among the

‘* All things
together.”

308 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

131. From all this it follows that, when “all things
were together,” and when the different seeds of things
were mixed together in infinitely small particles (fr. 1),
the appearance presented would be that of one of what
had hitherto been regarded as the primary substances.
As a matter of fact, they did present the appearance
of “air and aether”; for the qualities (things) which
belong to these prevail in quantity over all other
things in the universe, and everything is most obviously
that of which it has most in it (fr. 12 sub fin.). Here,
then, Anaxagoras attaches himself to Anaximenes.
The primary condition of things, before the formation
of the worlds, is much the same in both; only, with
Anaxagoras, the original mass is no longer the primary
substance, but a mixture of innumerable seeds divided
into infinitely small parts.

This mass is infinite, like the air of Anaximenes,
and it supports itself, since there is nothing surrounding
it.’ Further, the “seeds” of all things which it
contains are infinite in number (fr. 1). But, as the
innumerable seeds may be divided into those in which
the portions of cold, moist, dense, and dark prevail, and
those which have most of the warm, dry, rare, and
light in them, we may say that the original mass was
a mixture of infinite Air and of infinite Fire. The
seeds of Air, of course, contain “portions” of the

ὁμοιομερῆ in Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 a τι (R. P. 150 a). Bonitz under-
stands the words καθάπερ ὕδωρ ἢ πῦρ to mean “‘as we have just seen that
Fire and Water do in the system of Empedokles.” In any case, καθάπερ
goes closely with οὕτω, and the general sense is that Anaxagoras applies
to the ὁμοιομερῆ what is really true of the στοιχεῖα, It would be better to
delete the comma after πῦρ and add one after φησι, for συγκρίσει καὶ διακρίσει
μόνον is explanatory of οὕτω... καθάπερ. Inthe next sentence, I read

᾿ἁπλῶς for ἄλλως with Zeller (Avch. ii. p. 261). See also Arist. de Caelo,

I’, 3. 302 δ 1 (R. P. 150 a), where the matter is very clearly put.
1 Arist. Phys. ΓΤ, 5. 205 b1(R. P. 154 a).

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 309

“things” that predominate in Fire, and vzce versa; but
we regard everything as being that of which it has
most in it. Lastly, there is no void in this mixture,
an addition to the theory made necessary by the
arguments of Parmenides. It is, however, worthy of
note that Anaxagoras added an experimental proof of
this to the purely dialectical one of the Eleatics. He
used the klepsydra experiment as Empedokles had
done (fr. 100), and also showed the corporeal nature of
air by means of inflated skins.’

132. Like Empedokles, Anaxagoras required some
external cause to produce motion in the mixture.
Body, Parmenides had shown, would never move
itself, as the Milesians had supposed. Anaxagoras
called the cause of motion by the name of Nous. It
was this which made Aristotle say that he “stood out
like a sober man from the random talkers that had
preceded him,”? and he has often been credited with
the introduction of the spiritual into philosophy. The
disappointment expressed both by Plato and Aristotle
as to the way in which Anaxagoras worked out the
theory should, however, make us pause to reflect before
accepting too exalted a view of it. Plato® makes
Sokrates say: “I once heard a man reading a book,
as he said, of Anaxagoras, and saying it was Mind
that ordered the world and was the cause of all things.
I was delighted to hear of this cause, and I thought he
really was right. . . . But my extravagant expectations

1 Phys. ὦ, 6. 213 a 22 (R. P. 159). We have a full discussion of the
experiments with the &/epsydra in Probl. 914 Ὁ 9 sqq., a passage which
we have already used to illustrate Empedokles, fr. 100. See above,
Ῥ. 253, ἢ, 2.

? Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 Ὁ 15 (R. P. 152).

3 Plato, Phd. 97 Ὁ 8 (R. P. 155 d).

Nous.

310 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

were all dashed to the ground when I went on and
found that the man made no use of Mind at all. He
ascribed no causal power whatever to it in the ordering
of things, but to airs, and aethers, and waters, and a
host of other strange things.” Aristotle, probably
with this passage in mind, says:' “ Anaxagoras uses
Mind as a deus ex machina to account for the formation
of the world ; and whenever he is at a loss to explain
why anything necessarily is, he drags it in. But in
other cases he makes anything rather than Mind the
cause.” These utterances may well suggest that the
Nous of Anaxagoras did not really stand on a_higher
level than the Love and Strife of Empedokles, and this’
will only be confirmed when we look at what he
himself has to say about it.

In the first place, Nous is unmixed (fr. 12), and
does not, like other things, contain a portion of every-
thing. This would hardly be worth saying of an
immaterial mind; no one would suppose that to be
hot or cold. The result of its being unmixed is that

᾽)

it “has power over” everything, that is to say, in the

language of Anaxagoras, it causes things to move.”
Herakleitos had said as much of Fire, and Empedokles
of Strife. Further, it is the “thinnest” of all things,
so that it can penetrate everywhere, and it would be
meaningless to say that the immaterial is “thinner”
than the material. It is true that Nous also “knows

1 Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 ἃ 18 (R. P. 155 4).

2. Arist. Phys. Θ, 5. 256 Ὁ 24, διὸ καὶ ᾿Αναξαγόρας ὀρθῶς λέγει, τὸν νοῦν
ἀπαθῆ φάσκων καὶ ἀμιγῆ εἶναι, ἐπειδήπερ κινήσεως ἀρχὴν αὐτὸν ποιεῖ εἷναι"
οὕτω γὰρ ἂν μόνως κινοίη ἀκίνητος ὧν καὶ κρατοίη ἀμιγὴς ὥν. This is only
quoted for the meaning of κρατεῖν. Of course, the words ἀκίνητος ὧν are
not meant to be historical, and still less is the interpretation in de An. I,
4. 429 a 18. Diogenes of Apollonia (fr. 5) couples ὑπὸ τούτου πάντα
κυβερνᾶσθαι (the old Milesian word) with πάντων κρατεῖν.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 311

all things”; but so, perhaps, did the Fire of
Herakleitos,| and certainly the Air of Diogenes.’
Zeller holds, indeed, that Anaxagoras meant to speak
of something incorporeal; but he admits that he did
not succeed in doing so, and that is historically the
important point. Nous is certainly imagined as
occupying space ; for we hear of greater _and smaller
parts of it (fr. 12).

The truth probably is that Anaxagoras substituted
Nous for the Love and Strife of Empedokles, because
he wished to retain the old Ionic doctrine of a
substance that “knows” all things, and to identify
this with the new theory of a substance that “ moves”
all things. Perhaps, too, it was his increased interest in
physiological as distinguished from purely cosmological
matters that led him to speak of Mind rather than
Soul. The former word certainly suggests design
more clearly than the latter, But, in any case, the
originality of Anaxagoras lies far more in the theory
of matter than in that of Nous.

133. The formation of a world starts with a
rotatory motion which Nous imparts to a portion of
the mixed mass in which “all things are together”
(fr. 13), and this rotatory motion gradually extends
over a wider and wider space. Its rapidity (fr. 9)
produced a separation of the rare and the dense, the
cold and the hot, the dark and the light, the moist and
the dry (fr. 15). This separation produces two great
masses, the one consisting of the rare, hot, light, and
dry, called the “Aether”; the other, in which the
opposite qualities predominate, called “ Air” (fr. 1).

1 If we retain the MS. εἰδέναι in fr. 1. In any case, the name τὸ σοφόν
implies as much. 2 See fr. 3, 5. 8 Zeller, p. 993.

Formation of
the worlds.

Innumerable
worlds.

*

312 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Of these the Aether or Fire’ took the outside while
the Air occupied the centre (fr. 15).

The next stage is the separation of the air into
clouds, water, earth, and stones (fr. 16). In this
Anaxagoras follows Anaximenes closely. In_ his
account of the origin of the heavenly bodies, however,
he showed himself more original. We read at the
end of fr. 16 that stones “rush outwards more than
water,” and we learn from the doxographers that the
heavenly bodies were explained as stones torn from
the earth by the rapidity of its revolution and made
red-hot by the speed of their own motion.? Perhaps
the fall of the meteoric stone at Aigospotamoi had
something to do with the origin of this theory. It
may also be observed that, while in the earlier stages
of the world-formation we are guided chiefly by the
analogy of water rotating with light and heavy bodies
floating in it, we are here reminded rather of a sling.

134. That Anaxagoras adopted the ordinary Ionian
theory of innumerable worlds is perfectly clear from
fr. 4, which we have no right to regard as other than
continuous.* The words “that it was not only with
us that things were separated off, but elsewhere too”
can only mean that Nous has caused a _ rotatory
movement in more parts of the boundless mixture than
one. Aetios certainly includes Anaxagoras among
those who held there was only one world; but this
testimony cannot be considered of the same weight as

* Note that Anaxagoras says “air”? where Empedokles usually said
“‘aether,” and that ‘‘aether” is with him equivalent to fire. Cf. Arist.
de Caelo, T, 3. 302 Ὁ 4, τὸ yap πῦρ καὶ τὸν αἰθέρα προσαγορεύει ταὐτό ;
and 4. A, 3. 270 Ὁ 24, ᾿Αναξαγόρας δὲ καταχρῆται τῷ ὀνόματι τούτῳ
οὐ καλῶς" ὀνομάζει yap αἰθέρα ἀντὶ πυρός. [

3. Aet. ii. 13, 3 (Dox. p. 341; R. P. 157 ¢).
3 See above, p. 300, n. 1.

a

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 313

that of the fragments.’ Zeller’s reference of the words

>

“elsewhere, as with us” to the moon is very im-

probable. Is it likely that any one-.would say that
the inhabitants of the moon “have a sun and moon
as with us” ?”
135. The cosmology of Anaxagoras is clearly based
upon that of Anaximenes, as will be obvious from
a comparison of the following passage of Hippolytos *
with the quotations given in Chap. I. (δ 29) :-—

(3) The earth is flat in shape, and remains suspended
because of its size and because there isno vacuum.* For this
reason the air is very strong, and supports the earth which is
borne up by it.

(4) Of the moisture on the surface of the earth, the sea
arose from the waters in the earth (for when these were
evaporated the remainder turned salt),° and from the rivers
which flow into it.

(5) Rivers take their being both from the rains and from the
waters in the earth ; for the earth is hollow and has waters in
its cavities. And the Nile rises in summer owing to the water
that comes down from the snows in Ethiopia.®

1 Aet. ii. 1, 3. See above, Chap. I. p. 63.

2 Further, it can be proved that this passage (fr. 4) occurred quite near
the beginning of the work. Cf. Simpl. Phys. p. 34, 28, mer’ ὀλίγα τῆς
ἀρχῆς τοῦ πρώτου Περὶ φυσέως, p. 156, 1, καὶ μετ᾽ ὀλίγα (after fr. 2),
which itself occurred, μετ᾽ ὀλίγον (after fr. 1), which was the beginning of
the book. A reference to other ‘‘ worlds” would be quite in place here,
but not a reference to the moon.

3 Ref. i. 8, 3 (Dox. p. 562).

* This is an addition to the older view occasioned by the Eleatic denial
of the void.

> The text here is very corrupt, but the general sense can be got from
Aet. iii. 16. 2.

® The MS. reading is ἐν τοῖς ἄρκτοις, for which Diels adopts Fredrichs’
ἐν τοῖς Gyrapxtixois. I have thought it safer to translate the ἐν τῇ Αἰθιοπίᾳ
which Aetios gives (iv. 1, 3). This view is mentioned and rejected by
Herodotos (ii. 22). Seneca (V.Q. iv. 2, 17) points out that it was adopted
by Aischylos (Supp/. 559, fr. 300, Nauck), Sophokles (fr. 797), and Euripides
(el. 3, fr. 228). ᾽

Cosmology

314 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(6) The sun and the moon and all the stars are fiery stones
carried round by the rotation of the aether. Under the stars
are the sun and moon, and also certain bodies which revolve
with them, but are invisible to us.

(7) We do not feel the heat of the stars because of the
greatness of their distance from the earth; and, further, they
are not so warm as the sun, because ‘they occupy a colder
region. ‘The moon is below the sun, and nearer us.

(8) The sun surpasses the Peloponnesos in size. The
moon has not a light of her own, but gets it from the sun.
The course of the stars goes under the earth.

(9) The moon is eclipsed by the earth screening the sun’s
light from it, and sometimes, too, by the bodies below the moon
coming before it. The sun is eclipsed at the new moon, when
the moon screens it from us. Both the sun and the moon turn
in their courses owing to the repulsion of the air. The moon
turns frequently, because it cannot prevail over the cold.

(10) Anaxagoras was the first to determine what concerns
the eclipses and the illumination of the sun and moon.
And he said the moon was of earth, and had plains and
ravines in it. The Milky Way was the reflexion of the
light of the stars that were not illuminated by the sun.
Shooting stars were sparks, as it were, which leapt out owing
to the motion of the heavenly vault.

(11) Winds arose when the air was rarefied by the sun, and
when things were burned and made their way to the vault of
heaven and were carried off. Thunder and lightning were
produced by heat striking upon clouds.

(12) Earthquakes were caused by the air above striking on
that beneath the earth ; for the movement of the latter caused
the earth which floats on it to rock.

All this confirms in the most striking way the state-
ment of Theophrastos, that Anaxagoras had belonged to
the school of Anaximenes. The flat earth floating on
the air, the dark bodies below the moon, the explanation
of the solstices and the “turnings” of the moon by the
resistance of air, the explanations given of wind and of

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 315

thunder and lightning, are all derived from the earlier
inquirer.

136. “ There is a portion of everything in every-
thing except Nous, and there are some things in which
there is Nous also” (fr. 11). In these words Anaxa-
goras laid down the distinction between animate and
inanimate things. He tells us that it is the same Nous
that “has power over,” that is, sets in motion, all things
that have life, both the greater and the smaller (fr. 12).
The Nous in living creatures is the same in all (fr. 12),
and from this it followed that the different grades of
intelligence which we observe in the animal and
vegetable worlds depend entirely on the structure of the
body. The Nous was the same, but it had more
opportunities in one body than another. Man was the
wisest of animals, not because he had a better sort of
Nous, but simply because he had hands.’ This view is
quite in accordance with the previous development of
thought upon the subject. Parmenides, in the Second
Part of his poem (fr. 16), had already made the thought
of men depend upon the constitution of their limbs.

As all Nous is the same, we are not surprised to
find that plants were regarded as living creatures. If
we may trust. the pseudo-Aristotelian TZveatise on
Plants” so far, Anaxagoras argued that they must feel
pleasure and pain in connexion with their growth and
with the fall of their leaves. Plutarch says * that ,he
called plants “animals fixed in the earth.” |

Both plants and animals originated in the first
instance from the πανσπερμία. Plants first arose when

1 Arist. de Part. An. A, το. 687 a 7 (R. P. 160 Ὁ).
2 [Arist.] εὐ plant, A, 1. 815 a 15 (R. P. 160).
8. Plut. 0.4. 1(R. P. 160), fgov . . . ἐγγεῖον.

Biology.

Perception.

316 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the seeds of them which the air contained were brought
down by the rain-water,’ and animals originated in a
similar way.2. Like Anaximander, Anaxagoras held
that animals first arose in the moist element.’

137. In these scanty notices we seem to see traces
of a polemical attitude towards Empedokles, and the
same may be observed in what we are told of the
theory of perception adopted by Anaxagoras, especially
in the view that perception is of contraries* The
account which Theophrastos gives of this® is as
follows :—

But Anaxagoras says that perception is produced by
opposites ; for like things cannot be affected by like. He
attempts to give a detailed enumeration of the particular
senses. We see by means of the image in the pupil; but no
image is cast upon what is of the same colour, but only on
what is different. With most living creatures things are of a
different colour to the pupil by day, though with some this is
so by night, and these are accordingly keen-sighted at that
time. Speaking generally, however, night is more of the same
colour with the eyes than day. And an image is cast on the
pupil by day, because light is a concomitant cause of the image,
and because the prevailing colour casts an image more readily
upon its opposite.® .

It is in the same way that touch and taste discern their
objects. That which is just as warm or just as cold as we are
neither warms us nor cools us by its contact ; and, in the same

_ way, we do not apprehend the sweet and the sour by means of

themselves. We know cold by warm, fresh by salt, and sweet
by sour, in virtue of our deficiency in each; for all these are
in us to begin with. And we smell and hear in the same

1 Theophr. His¢. Plant. iii. 1, 4 (R. P. 160).
2 Irenaeus, adv. Haer. ii. 14, 2 (R. P. 160 a).
3 Hipp. Ref. i. 8, 12 (Dox. p. 563).

4 Beare, p. 37.

ὃ Theophr. de Sensu, 27 sqq. (Dox. p. 507).
® Beare, p. 38.

ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI 317

manner ; the former by means of the accompanying respiration,
the latter by the sound penetrating to the brain, for the bone
which surrounds this is hollow, and it is upon it that the
sound falls.?

And all sensation implies pain, a view which would seem
to be the consequence οὗ the first assumption, for all unlike
things produce pain by their contact. And this pain is made
perceptible by the long continuance or by the excess of a
sensation. Brilliant colours and excessive noises produce pain,
and we cannot dwell long on the same things. The larger
animals are the more sensitive, and, generally, sensation is
proportionate to the size of the organs of sense. Those animals
which have large, pure, and bright eyes, see large objects and
from a great distance, and contrariwise.?

And it is the same with hearing. Large animals can hear
-great and distant sounds, while less sounds pass unperceived ;
small animals perceive small sounds and those near at hand.®
It is the same too with smell. Rarefied air has more smell ;
for, when air is heated and rarefied, it smells. A large animal
when it breathes draws in the condensed air along with the
rarefied, while a small one draws in the rarefied by itself ; so
the large one perceives more. For smell is better perceived
when it is near than when it is far by reason of its being more
condensed, while when dispersed it is weak. But, roughly
speaking, large animals do not perceive a rarefied smell, nor
small animals a condensed one.*

This theory marks in some respects an advance’
upon that of Empedokles, It was a happy thought of
Anaxagoras to make sensation depend upon irritation
by opposites, and to connect it with pain. Many |
modern theories are based upon a similar idea.

That Anaxagoras regarded the senses as incapable
of reaching the truth of things is shown by the
fragments preserved by Sextus. But we must not, for
all that, turn him into asceptic. The saying preserved

1 Beare, p. 208. 2 7δὲα. p. 209.
* Jbid. p. 103. 4 Jbid. p. 137.

318 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

by Aristotle’ that “things are as we suppose them to
be,” has no value at all as evidence. It comes from
some collection of apophthegms, not from the treatise
of Anaxagoras himself; and it had, as likely as not, a
moral application. He did say (fr. 21) that “the
weakness of our senses prevents our discerning the
truth,” but this meant simply that we do not see the
“portions” of everything which are in everything ; for
instance, the portions of black which are in the white.
Our senses simply show us the portions that prevail.
He also said that the things which are seen give us
the power of seeing the invisible, which is the very
opposite of scepticism (fr. 212).

1 Met. A, 5. 1009 b 25 (R. P. 161 a).

CHAPTER VII

THE PYTHAGOREANS

138. WE have seen (§ 40) how the Pythagoreans, The

Pythagorean

after losing their supremacy at Kroton, concentrated school.

themselves at Rhegion; but the school founded there

was soon broken up. Archippos stayed behind in |

_Italy ; but Philolaos and Lysis, the latter of whom
had escaped as a young man from the massacre of
Kroton, betook themselves to continental Hellas,
settling finally at Thebes. We know from Plato that
Philolaos was there some time during the latter part
of the fifth century, and Lysis was afterwards the
teacher of Epameinondas.’ Some of the Pythagoreans,
however, were able to return to Italy later on.
Philolaos certainly did so, and Plato implies that he
had left Thebes some time before 399 B.C., the year
in which Sokrates was put to death. In the fourth
century, the chief seat of the school is at Taras, and
we find the Pythagoreans heading the opposition to
Dionysios of Syracuse. It is to this period that
Archytas belongs. He was the friend of Plato, and

almost realised, if he did not suggest, the ideal of the -"

philosopher king. He ruled Tara’ for years, and Aris-

For Philolaos, see Plato, Phd. 61d 7 ; e 7; and for Lysis, Aristoxenos
in Iambl. V. Pyth. 250 (ΚΒ. P. 59 b).

319

Philolaos.

320 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

toxenos tells us that he was never defeated in the field
of battle.’ He was also the inventor of mathematical
mechanics. At the same time, Pythagoreanism had
taken root in Hellas. Lysis, we have seen, remained
at Thebes, where Simmias and Kebes had heard
Philolaos, and there was an important community of
Pythagoreans at Phleious. Aristoxenos was personally
acquainted with the last generation of the school,
and mentioned by name Xenophilos the Chalkidian
from Thrace, with Phanton, Echekrates, Diokles, and
Polymnestos of Phleious. They were all, he said,
disciples of Philolaos and Eurytos.” Plato was on
friendly terms with these men, and dedicated the
Phaedo to them.* Xenophilos was the teacher of
Aristoxenos, and lived in perfect health at Athens till
the age of a hundred and ἔνε."

139. This generation of the school really belongs,
however, to a later period, and cannot be profitably
studied apart from Plato; it is with their master
Philolaos we have now to deal. The facts we know
about his teaching from external sources are few in
number. The doxographers, indeed, ascribe to him
an elaborate theory of the planetary system, but
Aristotle never mentions his name in connexion with
this. He gives it as the theory of “the Pythagoreans ”

» 5

or of “some Pythagoreans. It seems natural to

suppose, however, that the Pythagorean elements of

1 Diog. viii. 79-83 (R. P. 61). Aristoxenos himself came from Taras.
For the political activity of the Tarentine Pythagoreans, see Meyer, Gesch.
des Alterth. v. ἃ 824. The story of Damon and Phintias (told by
Aristoxenos) belongs to this time.

3 Diog. viii. 46 (R. P. 62).

3. Compare the way in which the 7heaetetus is dedicated to the school
of Megara.

4 See Aristoxenos af. Val. Max. viii. 13, ext. 3; and Souidas s.v.

5 See below, §§ 150-152.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 321

Plato’s Phaedo and Gorgias come mainly from
Philolaos. Plato makes Sokrates express surprise
that Simmias and Kebes had not learnt from him why
it is unlawful for a man to take his life,' and it seems
to be implied that the Pythagoreans at Thebes used
the word “ philosopher” in the special sense of a man
who is seeking to find a way of release from the burden
of this life? It is extremely probable that Philolaos
spoke of the body (σῶμα) as the tomb (σῆμα) of the
soul.?> In any case, we seem to be justified in holding
that he taught the old Pythagorean religious doctrine
in some form, and it is likely that he laid special stress
upon knowledge as a means of release. That is the
impression we get from Plato, and he is by far the
best authority we have on the subject.

We know further that Philolaos wrote on
“numbers” ; for Speusippos followed him in the

1 Plato, Phd. 61 d 6.

2 This appears to follow at once from the remark of Simmias in Phd.
64 b. The whole passage would be pointless if the words φιλόσοφος,
φιλοσοφεῖν, φιλοσοφία had not in some way become familiar to the ordinary
Theban of the fifth century. Now Herakleides Pontikos made Pythagoras
invent the word, and expound it in a conversation with Leon, tyrant of
Sikyon or Philetous. Cf. Diog, i. 12(R. P. 3), viii. 8; (Οἷς. Zzsc. v. 3. 85
Doring in Arch. v. pp. 505 sqq. It seems to me that the way in which the
term is introduced in the Phaedo is fatal to the view that this is a Sokratic
idea transferred by Herakleides to the Pythagoreans. Cf. also the remark
of Alkidamas quoted by Arist. Rhet. B, 23. 1398 Ὁ 18, Θήβησιν ἅμα of
προστάται φιλόσοφοι ἐγένοντο καὶ εὐδαιμόνησεν ἡ πόλις.

3. For reasons which will appear, I do not attach importance in this
connexion to Philolaos, fr. 14 Diels=23 Mullach (R. P. 89), but it does
seem likely that the μυθολογῶν κομψὸς ἀνήρ of Gorg. 493 a 5 (R. P. 89 Ὁ)
is responsible for the whole theory there given. He is certainly, in any
case, the author of the τετρημένος πίθος, which implies the same general
view. Now he is called tows Σικελός τις ἢ ᾿Ιταλικός, which means he was
an Italian; for the Σικελός τις is merely an allusion to the Σικελὸς κομψὸς
ἀνὴρ ποτὶ τὰν ματέρ᾽ ἔφα of Timokreon. We do not know of any Italian
from whom Plato could have learnt these views except Philolaos or one of
his disciples. They may, however, be originally Orphic for all that (cf.
R. P. 89 a).

21

Plato and the
Pythagoreans.

322 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

account he gave of the Pythagorean theories on that
subject.'_ It is probable that he busied himself mainly
with arithmetic, and we can hardly doubt. that his
geometry was of the primitive type described in an
earlier chapter. Eurytos was his disciple, and we have
seen (§ 47) that his views were still very crude.

We also know now that Philolaos wrote on
medicine,” and that, while apparently influenced by
the theories of the Sicilian school, he opposed them
from the Pythagorean standpoint. In particular, he
said that our bodies were composed only of the warm,
and did not participate in the cold. It was only after
birth that the cold was introduced by respiration. The
connexion of this with the old Pythagorean theory is
obvious. Just as the Fire in the macrocosm draws in
and limits the cold dark breath which surrounds the
world (§ 53), so do our bodies inhale cold breath from
outside. Philolaos made bile, blood, and phlegm the
causes of disease ; and, in accordance with the theory
just mentioned, he had to deny that the phlegm was
cold, as the Sicilian school held it was. Its etymology
proved that it was warm. As Diels says, Philolaos
strikes us as an “uninteresting eclectic” so far as his
medical views are concerned.? We shall see, however,
that it was just this preoccupation with the medicine
of the Sicilian school that gave rise to some of the
most striking developments of later Pythagoreanism.

140. Such, so far as we can see, was the historical

1 See above, Chap. II. p. 113, n. 2.

2 It is a good illustration of the defective character of our tradition
(Introd. § XIII.) that this was quite unknown till the publication of the
extracts from Menon’s /atrika contained in the Anonymus Londinensis.
The extract referring to Philolaos’is given and discussed by Diels in
Hermes, xxviii. pp. 417 sqq.

3 Hermes, loc. cit.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 323

Philolaos, and he is a sufficiently remarkable figure.
He is usually, however, represented in a different light,
and has even been spoken of as a‘“ precursor of
Copernicus.” To understand this, we shall have to
consider for a little the story of what can only be
called a literary conspiracy. Not till this has been
exposed will it be possible to estimate the real
importance of Philolaos and his immediate disciples.

As we can see from the Phaedo and the Gorgias,
Plato was intimate with these men and was deeply
impressed by their religious teaching, though it is plain
too that he did not adopt it as his own faith. He
was still more attracted by the scientific side of
Pythagoreanism, and to the last this exercised a great
influence on him. His own system in its final form
had many points of contact with it, as he is careful to
mark in the Phzlebus. But, just because he stood so
near it, he is apt to develop Pythagoreanism on lines
of his own, which may or may not have commended
themselves to Archytas, but are no guide to the views
of Philolaos and Eurytos. He is not careful, however,
to claim the authorship of his own improvements in
the system. He did not believe that cosmology could
be an exact science, and he is therefore quite willing
to credit Timaios the Lokrian, or “ancient sages”
generally, with theories which certainly had their birth
in the Academy.

Now Plato had many enemies and detractors, and
this literary device enabled them to bring against him
the charge of plagiarism. Aristoxenos was one of
these enemies, and we know he made the extraordinary
statement that most of the Republic was to be found in

1 Plato, Phileb. 16 csqq. | ae

324 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

a work by Protagoras.. He seems also to be the
original source of the story that Plato bought “three
Pythagorean books” from Philolaos and copied the
Timaeus out of them. According to this, the “three
books” had come into the possession of Philolaos;
and, as he had fallen into great poverty, Dion was
able to buy them from him, or from his relatives, at
Plato’s request, for a hundred mnae.” It is certain,
at any rate, that this story was already current in the
third century ; for the sillographer Timon of Phleious
addresses Plato thus: “ And of thee too, Plato, did the
desire of discipleship lay hold. For many pieces of
silver thou didst get in exchange a small book, and
starting from it didst learn to write Tzmaeus.”*
Hermippos, the pupil of Kallimachos, said that “some
writer” said that Plato himself bought the books from
the relatives of Philolaos for forty Alexandrian minae
and copied the 7zmaeus out of it; while Satyros, the
Aristarchean, says he got it through Dion for a
hundred mznae There is no suggestion in any of
these accounts that the book was by Philolaos himself ;
they imply rather that what Plato bought was.either a
book by Pythagoras, or at any rate authentic notes of
his teaching, which had come into the hands of
Philolaos. In later times, it was generally supposed
that the work entitled Zhe Soul of the World, by
Timaios the Lokrian, was meant;° but it has now
been proved beyond a doubt that this cannot have

1 Diog. iii. 37. For similar charges, cf. Zeller, Plato, p. 429, n. 7.

2 Tambl. V. Pyth. 199. Diels is clearly right in ascribing the story to
Aristoxenos (Arch. iii. p. 461, n. 26).

3 Timon af. Gell. iii. 17 (R. P. 60 a).

4 For Hermippos and Satyros, see Diog. iii. 9; viii. 84, 85.

Ὁ So Iambl. iz Nicom. p. 105, 11; Proclus, ἐξ Zim. p. 1, Diehl.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 325

existed earlier than the first century A.D. We know
nothing of Timaios except what Plato tells us himself,
and he may even be a fictitious character like the
Eleatic Stranger. His name does not occur among
the Lokrians in the Catalogue of Pythagoreans
preserved by Iamblichos.' Besides this, the work
does not fulfil the most important requirement, that
of being in three books, which is always an essential
feature of the story.”

Not one of the writers just mentioned professes to
have seen the famous’“ three books” ;* but at a later
date there were at least two works which claimed to
represent them. Diels has shown how a treatise in
three sections, entitled Παιδευτικόν, πολιτικόν, φυσικόν,
was composed in the Ionic dialect and attributed to
Pythagoras. It was largely based on the Πουθαγορικαὶ
ἀποφάσεις of Aristoxenos, but its date is uncertain.*
In the first century B.c., Demetrios Magnes was able
to quote the opening words of the work published by
Philolaos.2 That, however, was written in Doric.
Demetrios does not actually say it was by Philolaos
himself, though it is no doubt the same work from
which a number of extracts are preserved under his
name in Stobaios and later writers. If it professed to
_ be by Philolaos, that was not quite in accordance with
the original story ; but it is easy to see how his name

Diels, Vors. p. 269.

* They are τὰ θρυλούμενα τρία βιβλία (lambl. Κ΄, Pyth. 199), τὰ διαβόητα
τρία βιβλία (Diog. viii. 15).

® As Mr. Bywater says (J. Phil. i. p. 29), the history of this work
** reads: like the history, not so much of a book, as of a literary égnzs fatuus
floating before the minds of imaginative writers.”’

* Diels, ‘* Ein gefalschtes Pythagorasbuch ” (Arch, iii. pp. 451 sqq-).

5 Diog. viii. 85 (R. P. 63 b). Diels reads πρῶτον ἐκδοῦναι τῶν
Πυθαγορικῶν «βιβλία καὶ ἐπιγράψαι Περὶ» Φύσεως.

The
‘* Fragments
of Philolaos.”’

326 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

may have become attached to it. We are told that
the other book which passed under the name of
Pythagoras was really by Lysis." Boeckh has shown
that the work ascribed to Philolaos probably consisted
of three books also, and Proclus referred to it as the
Bakchai, a fanciful title which recalls the “ Muses” of
Herodotos. Two of the extracts in Stobaios bear it.
It must be confessed that the whole story is very
suspicious ; but, as some of the best authorities still
regard the fragments as partly genuine, it is necessary
to look at them more closely.

141. Boeckh argued with great learning and skill
that all the fragments preserved under the name of
Philolaos were genuine; but no one will now go so
far as this. The lengthy extract on the soul is given
up even by those who maintain the genuineness of the
rest.” It cannot be said that this position is plausible
on the face of it. Boeckh saw there was no ground
for supposing that there ever was more than a single
work, and he drew the conclusion that we must accept
all the remains as genuine or reject all as spurious.*
As, however, Zeller and Diels still maintain the
genuineness of most of the fragments, we cannot
ignore them altogether. Arguments ‘based. on the
doctrine contained in them would, it is true, present

1 Diog. viii. 7.

2 Proclus, zz πεῖ, p. 22, 15 (Friedlein). Cf. Boeckh, Phz/olaos,
pp- 36sqq. Boeckh refers toa sculptured group of ¢hvee Bakchai, whom he
supposes to be Ino, Agaue, and Autonoe.

3 The passage is given in R. P. 68. For a full discussion of this and
the other fragments, see Bywater, ‘*On the Fragments attributed to
Philolaus the Pythagorean” (/. PAz/. i. pp. 21 sqq.).

* Boeckh, Phz/olaos, p. 38. Diels ( Vors. p. 246) distinguishes the Bakchat
from the three books Περὶ φύσιος (24. p. 239). As, however, he identifies

the latter with the ‘‘ three books” ‘bought from Philolaos, and regards it as
genuine, this does not seriously affect the argument.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 327

the appearance of a vicious circle at this stage. It is
only in connexion with our other evidence that these
can be introduced. But there are two serious
objections to the fragments which may be mentioned
at once. They are sufficiently strong to justify us in
refusing to use them till we have ascertained from
other sources what doctrines may fairly be attributed
to the Pythagoreans of this date.

In the first place, we must ask a question which
has not yet been faced. Is it likely that Philolaos
should have written in Doric? Ionic was the dialect
of all science and philosophy till the time of the
Peloponnesian War, and there is no reason to suppose
that the early Pythagoreans used any other.’ ee:
goras was himself an Ionian, and it is by no mea
clear that in his time the Achaian States in which
founded his Order had already adopted the ene
dialect.2 Alkmaion of Kroton seems to have written
in Ionic.* Diels says, it is true, that Philolaos and
then Archytas were the first Pythagoreans to use the
dialect of their homes ;* but Philolaos can hardly be
said to have had a home,’ and the fragments of

1 See Diels in Arch. iii. pp. 460 sqq.

2 On thé Achaian dialect, see O. Hoffmann in Collitz and Bechtel,
Dialekt-Inschrifien, vol. ii. p. 151. How slowly Doric penetrated into the
Chalkidian states may be seen from the mixed dialect of the inscription of
Mikythos of Rhegion (Déal.-Juschr. iii. 2, p. 498), which is later than
468-67 B.c. There is no reason to suppose that the Achaian dialect of
Kroton was less tenacious of life.

8 The scanty fragments contain one Doric form, ἔχοντι (fr. 1), but
Alkmaion calls himself Kporwvujrns, which is very significant; for
Κροτωνιάτας is the Achaian as well as the Doric form. He did not,
therefore, write a mixed dialect like that referred to in the last note. It
seems safest to assume with Wachtler, De A/cmaeone Crotontata, pp. 21
sqq:, that he used Ionic.

4 Arch. iii. p. 460.

5 He is distinctly called a Krotoniate in the extracts from Menon’s
Ἰατρικά (cf. Diog. viii. 84). It is true that Aristoxenos called him and

328 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Archytas are not written in the dialect of Taras, but
in what may be called “common Doric.” Archytas
may have found it convenient to use that dialect ; but
he is at least a generation later than Philolaos, which
makes a great difference. There is evidence that, in
the time of Philolaos and later, lonic was still used
even by the citizens of Dorian states for scientific
purposes. Diogenes of Apollonia in Crete and the
Syracusan historian Antiochos wrote in Ionic, while
the medical writers of Dorian, Kos and Knidos,
continue to use the same dialect. The forged work
of Pythagoras referred to above, which some ascribed
to Lysis, was in Ionic; and so was the work on the
Akousmata attributed to Androkydes; which shows
that, even down to Alexandrian times, it was still
believed that Ionic was the proper dialect for Pytha-
gorean writings.

In the second place, there can be no doubt that
one of the fragments refers to the five regular solids,
four of which are identified with the elements of
Empedokles.? Now Plato gives us to understand, in
a well-known passage of the Republic, that stereometry
had not been adequately investigated at the time he
wrote,” and we have express testimony that the five
“ Platonic figures,” as they were called, were discovered
in the Academy. In the Scholia to Euclid we read

Eurytos Tarentines (Diog. viii. 46), but this only means that he settled at
Taras after leaving Thebes. These variations are common in the case of
migratory philosophers. Eurytos is also called a Krotoniate and a Meta-
pontine (Iambl. V. Pyth. 148, 266). Cf. also p. 380, ἢ. 1 on Leukippos,
and p. 406, n. 1 on Hippon.

? For Androkydes, see Diels, Vors. p. 281. As Diels points out (Arch.
ili, p. 461), even Lucian has sufficient sense of style to make Pythagoras
speak Ionic.

2 Cf. fr. 12=20 M. (R. P. 79), τὰ ἐν τᾷ σφαίρᾳ σώματα πέντε ἐντί.

3 Plato, Rep. 528 b.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 329

that the Pythagoreans only knew the cube, the
pyramid (tetrahedron), and the dodecahedron, while the
octahedron and the icosahedron were discovered by
Theaitetos.' This sufficiently justifies us in regarding
the “fragments of Philolaos” with something more
than suspicion. We shall find more anachronisms as
we go on. |

142. We must look, then, for other evidence.
From what has been said, it will be clear that we
cannot safely take Plato as our guide to the original
meaning of the Pythagorean theory, though it is
certainly from him alone that we can learn to regard
it sympathetically. Aristotle, on the ‘other hand, was
quite out of sympathy with Pythagorean ways of
thinking, but took a great deal of pains to understand
them. This was just because they played so great a
part in the philosophy of Plato and his successors, and
he had to make the relation of the two doctrines as
clear as he could to himself and his disciples. What
we have to do, then, is to interpret what Aristotle tells
us in the spirit of Plato, and then to consider how the
doctrine we arrive at in this way is related to the
systems which had preceded it. It is a delicate
operation, no doubt, but it has been made much safer

1 Heiberg’s Euclid, vol. v. p. 654, 1, Ἔν τούτῳ τῷ βιβλίῳ, τουτέστι
τῷ vy’, γράφεται τὰ λεγόμενα Πλάτωνος ὃ σχήματα, ἃ αὐτοῦ μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν,
τρία δὲ τῶν προειρημένων € σχημάτων τῶν Πυθαγορείων ἐστίν, ὅ τε κύβος
καὶ ἡ πυραμὶς καὶ τὸ δωδεκάεδρον, Θεαιτήτου δὲ τό τε ὀκτάεδρον καὶ τὸ
εἰκοσάεδρον. It isno objection to this that, as Newbold points out (Arch.
xix. p. 204), the inscription of the dodecahedron is more difficult than that
of the octahedron and icosahedron. The Pythagoreans were not confined
to strict Euclidean methods. It may further be noted that Tannery comes
to a similar conclusion with regard to the musical scale described in the
fragment of Philolaos. He says: “Il n’y a jamais eu, pour la division du
tétracorde, une tradition pythagoricienne ; on ne peut pas avec sfireté
remonter plus haut que Platon ou qu’Archytas” (Rev. de Philologie, 1904,

Ῥ. 244).

The Proble

7

330 ΕΑΒΙΥ GREEK PHILOSOPHY

by recent discoveries in the early history of mathematics
and medicine.

Zeller has cleared the ground by eliminating the
purely Platonic elements which have crept into later
accounts of the system. These are of two kinds.
First of all, we have genuine Academic formulae, such
as the identification of the Limit and the Unlimited
with the One and the Indeterminate Dyad;* and
secondly, there is the Neoplatonic doctrine which
represents it as an opposition between God and
Matter.” It is not necessary to repeat Zeller’s
arguments here, as no one will any longer attribute
these doctrines to the Pythagoreans of the fifth
century.

This simplifies the problem very considerably, but
it is still extremely difficult. According to Aristotle,
the Pythagoreans said Things are numbers, though that
does not appear to be the doctrine of the fragments of
“ Philolaos.” According to them, things Zave number,
which make them knowable, while their real essence is
something unknowable.* That would be intelligible
enough, but the formula that things ave numbers seems
meaningless. We have seen reason for believing that
it is due to Pythagoras himself (§ 52), though we did
not feel able to say very clearly what he meant by it.

1 Aristotle says distinctly (J/e¢. A, 6. 987 Ὁ 25) that ““ἴο set up a dyad
instead of the unlimited regarded as one, and to make the unlimited consist
of the great and small, is distinctive of Plato.” Zeller seems to make an
unnecessary concession with regard to this passage (p. 368, n. 2; Eng.
trans. p. 396, n. I).

? Zeller, p. 369 sqq. (Eng. trans. p. 397 sqq.).

3 For the doctrine of ““ Philolaos,” cf. fr. 1=2 Ch. (R. P. 64); and for
the unknowable ἐστὼ τῶν πραγμάτων, see fr. 3=4 Ch. (R. P. 67). It
has a suspicious resemblance to the later ὕλη, which Aristotle would hardly
have failed to note if he had ever seen the passage. He is always on the
lookout for anticipations of ὕλη.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 331

There is no such doubt as to his school. Aristotle
says they used the formula in a cosmological sense.
The world, according to them, was made of numbers
in the same sense as others had said it was made of
“four roots” or “innumerable seeds.” It will not do
to dismiss this as mysticism. Whatever we may think
of Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans of the fifth century
were scientific men, and they must have meant some-
thing quite definite. We shall, no doubt, have to say
that they used the words Things are numbers in a
somewhat non-natural sense, but there is no difficulty
in such a supposition. We have seen already how the
friends of Aristoxenos reinterpreted the old Axousmata
(§ 44). The Pythagoreans had certainly a great
veneration for the actual words of the Master (αὐτὸς
ἔφα) ; but such veneration is often accompanied by a
singular licence of interpretation. We shall start,
then, from what Aristotle tells us about the numbers.
143. In the first place, Aristotle is quite decided Aristotle on

in his opinion that Pythagoreanism was intended to ἜΝ
be a cosmological system like the others. “Though

”

the Pythagoreans,” he tells us, “made use of less
obvious first principles and elements than the rest,
seeing that they did not derive them from sensible
objects, yet all their discussions and studies had
reference to nature alone. They describe the origin
of the heavens, and they observe the phenomena of its
parts, all that happens to it and all it does.”’ They
apply their first principles entirely to these things,
“ agreeing apparently with the other natural philosophers
in holding that reality was just what could be perceived
by the senses, and is contained within the compass of

1 Arist. 27εἰ. A, 8. 989 Ὁ 29 (R. P. 92 a).

332 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the heavens,” ’ though “ the first principles and causes
of which they made use were really adequate to
explain realities of a higher order than the sensible.” ὅ

The doctrine is more precisely stated by Aristotle
to be that the elements of numbers are the elements of
things, and that therefore things are numbers? He
is equally positive that these “things” are sensible
things,* and indeed that they are bodies,’ the bodies of
which the world is constructed.° This construction of
the world out of numbers was a real process in time,
which the Pythagoreans described in detail.’

Further, the numbers were intended to be mathe-
matical numbers, though they were not separated from
the things of sense. On the other hand, they were
not mere predicates of something else, but had an
independent reality of their own. ‘“ They did not hold
that the limited and the unlimited and the one were

1 Arist. AZez. A, 8. 990 a 3, ὁμολογοῦντες τοῖς ἄλλοις φυσιολόγοις ὅτι τό
γ᾽ ὃν τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ὅσον αἰσθητόν ἐστὶ καὶ περιείληφεν ὁ καλούμενος οὐρανός.

2 Met. tb. 990 a 5, τὰς δ᾽ αἰτίας καὶ τὰς ἀρχάς, ὥσπερ εἴπομεν, ἱκανὰς
λέγουσιν ἐπαναβῆναι καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἀνωτέρω τῶν ὄντων, καὶ μᾶλλον ἢ τοῖς
περὶ φύσεως λόγοις ἁρμοττούσας,

3 Met. A, 5. 986 a 1, τὰ τῶν ἀριθμῶν στοιχεῖα τῶν ὄντων στοιχεῖα
πάντων ὑπέλαβον εἷναι; N, 3. ΙΟ90 ἃ 22, εἶναι μὲν ἀριθμοὺς ἐποίησαν τὰ
ὄντα, οὐ χωριστοὺς δέ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τὰ ὄντα.

4 Met. Μ, 6. 1080 b 2, ὡς ἐκ τῶν ἀριθμῶν ἐνυπαρχόντων ὄντα τὰ
αἰσθητά; 20. 1080 Ὁ 17, ἐκ τούτου (τοῦ μαθηματικοῦ ἀριθμοῦ) τὰς αἰσθητὰς
οὐσίας συνεστάναι φασίν.

5 Met. M, 8. 1083 Ὁ 11, τὰ σώματα ἐξ ἀριθμῶν εἶναι συγκείμενα ; 76.
b 17, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ τὸν ἀριθμὸν τὰ ὄντα λέγουσιν " τὰ γοῦν θεωρήματα πρόσ-
άπτουσι τοῖς σώμασιν ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνων ὄντων τῶν ἀριθμῶν ; N, 3. 1090 a 32,
κατὰ μέντοι τὸ ποιεῖν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν τὰ φυσικὰ σώματα, ἐκ μὴ ἐχόντων βάρος
μηδὲ κουφότητα ἔχοντα κουφότητα καὶ βάρος.

6 Met. A, 5. 986 a 2, τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἁρμονίαν εἶναι καὶ ἀριθμέν: 8.
990 a 21, τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦτον ἐξ οὗ συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος ; M, 6. 1080 Ἶ ᾿18,
τὸν γὰρ ὅλον οὐρανὸν κατασκευάζουσιν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν ; de Caelo, Τ', 1. 300 ἃ 15,
τοῖς ἐξ ἀριθμῶν συνιστᾶσι τὸν οὐρανόν " ἔνιοι γὰρ τὴν φύσιν ἐξ ἀριθμῶν
συνιστᾶσιν, ὥσπερ τῶν Πυθαγορείων τινές.

7 Met. N, 3. 1091 a 18, κοσμοποιοῦσι καὶ φυσικῶς βούλονται spade

8 Met. M, 6. 1080 Ὁ 16; N, 3. 1090 a 20,

THE PYTHAGOREANS 333

certain other substances, such as fire, water, or anything x
else of that sort ; but that the unlimited itself and the
one itself were the reality of the things of which they
are predicated, and that is why they said that number
was the reality of everything.” ὦ
numbers are, in Aristotle’s own language, not only the
formal, but also the material, cause of things.”
According to the Pythagoreans, things are made of

Accordingly the

numbers in the same sense as they were made of fire,
air, or water in the theories of their predecessors.

Lastly, Aristotle notes that the point in which the
Pythagoreans agreed with Plato was in giving numbers
an independent reality of their own; while Plato
differed from the Pythagoreans in holding that this
reality was distinguishable from that of sensible things.®
Let us consider these statements in detail.

144. Aristotle speaks of certain “elements” The elemen
(στοιχεῖα) of numbers, which were also the elements of + ae
things. That, of course, is only his own way of
putting the matter; but it is clearly the key to the
problem, if we can discover what it means. Pri-
marily, the “elements of number” are the Odd and
the Even, but that does not seem to help us much.
We find, however, that the Odd and Even were
identified in a somewhat violent way with the Limit
and the Unlimited, which we have seen reason to
regard as the original principles of the Pythagorean
cosmology. Aristotle tells us that it is the Even which
gives things their unlimited character when it is
contained in them and limited by the Odd,* and the

1 Arist. Met. A, 5.987015. θΣ 3 Met. tb. 986015 (R. P. 66).

3 Met, A, 6. 987 Ὁ 27, ὁ μὲν (Πλάτων) τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς παρὰ τὰ αἰσθητά,
οἱ δ᾽ (οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι) ἀριθμοὺς εἶναί φασιν αὐτὰ τὰ αἰσθητά.

4 Met. A, 5. 986217 (R. P. 66) ; Phys. T, 4. 203 a 10(R. P. 66 a).

334 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

commentators are at one in understanding this to
mean that the Even is in some way the cause of
infinite divisibility. They get into great difficulties,
however, when they try to show how this can be.
Simplicius has preserved an explanation, in all prob-
ability Alexander’s, to the effect that they called the
even number unlimited “ because every even is divided
into equal parts, and what is divided into equal parts
is unlimited in respect of bipartition ; for division into
equals and halves goes on ad infinitum. But, when
the odd is added, it limits it; for it prevents its

1 Now it is plain that we

division into equal parts.
must not impute to the Pythagoreans the view that |
even numbers can be halved indefinitely. They had
carefully studied the properties of the decad, and
they must have known that the even numbers 6
and 10 do not admit of this. The explanation is
really to be found in a fragment of Aristoxenos,
where we read that “even numbers are those which
are divided into equal parts, while odd numbers are
divided into unequal parts and have ἃ middle

» ἃ

term. This is still further elucidated by a passage

which is quoted in Stobaios and ultimately goes
back to Poseidonios. It runs: “When the odd is
divided into two equal parts, a unit is left over in the
middle ; but when the even is so divided, an empty

1 Simpl. Phys. p. 455, 20 (R. P. 66a). I owe the passages which I
have used in illustration of this subject to W. A. Heidel, ‘* Πέρας and ἄπειρον
in the Pythagorean Philosophy ” (Arch. xiv. pp. 384 sqq.). The general
principle of my interpretation is also the same as his, though I think that,
by bringing the passage into connexion with the numerical figures, I have
avoided the necessity of regarding the words ἡ γὰρ eis toa καὶ ἡμίση
διαίρεσις ἐπ’ ἄπειρον as “‘ an attempted elucidation added by Simplicius.”

2 Aristoxenos, fr. 81, ap. Stob. i. p. 20, 1, ἐκ τῶν ᾿Αριστοξένου Περὶ ἀριθμη-
τικῆς . . . τῶν δὲ ἀριθμῶν ἄρτιοι μέν εἰσιν οἱ εἰς toa διαιρούμενοι, περισσοὶ
δὲ οἱ εἰς ἄνισα καὶ μέσον ἔχοντες.

THE PYTHAGOREANS _ 335

field is left, without a master and without.a number,
showing that it is defective and incomplete.”* Again,
Plutarch says: “In the division of numbers, the even,
when parted in any direction, leaves as it were within
itself . . . a field; but, when the same thing is done
to the odd, there is always a middle left over from the
division.” It is clear that all these passages refer to
the same thing, and that can hardly be anything else
than those arrangements of “terms” in patterns with
which we are already familiar (§ 47). If we think of
these, we shall see in what sense it is true that
bipartition goes on ad infinitum. However high the
number may be, the number of ways in which it can
be equally divided will also increase.

145. In this way, then, the Odd and the Even
were identified with the Limit and the Unlimited, and
it is possible, though by no means certain, that
Pythagoras himself had taken this step. In any case,
there can be no doubt that by his Unlimited he meant
something spatially extended, and we have seen that
he identified it with air, night, or the void, so we are
prepared to find that his followers also thought of the
Unlimited as extended. Aristotle certainly regarded
it so. He argues that, if the Unlimited is itself a

1 [Plut.] αὐ. Stob. i. p. 22, 19, καὶ μὴν els δύο διαιρουμένων ἴσα τοῦ
μὲν περισσοῦ μονὰς ἐν μέσῳ περιέστι, τοῦ δὲ ἀρτίου κενὴ λείπεται χώρα
καὶ ἀδέσποτος καὶ ἀνάριθμος, ὡς ἂν ἐνδεοῦς καὶ ἀτελοῦς ὄντος.

2 Plut. de EZ apud Delphos, 388 a, ταῖς γὰρ εἰς ἴσα τομαῖς τῶν ἀριθμῶν,
ὁ μὲν ἄρτιος πάντῃ διϊστάμενος ὑπολείπει τινὰ δεκτικὴν ἀρχὴν οἷον ἐν
ἑαυτῷ καὶ χώραν, ἐν δὲ τῷ περιττῷ ταὐτὸ παθόντι μέσον ἀεὶ περίεστι τῆς
νεμήσεως γόνιμον. The words which I have omitted in translating refer
to the further identification of Odd and Even with Male and Female. The
passages quoted by Heidel might be added to. Cf., for instance, what
Nikomachos says (p. 13, 10, Hoche), ἔστι δὲ ἄρτιον μὲν ὃ οἷόν re εἰς δύο toa
διαιρεθῆναι μονάδος μέσον μὴ παρεμπιπτούσης, περιττὸν δὲ τὸ μὴ δυνάμενον
εἰς δύο ἴσα μερισθῆναι διὰ τὴν προειρημένην τῆς μονάδος μεσιτείαν. He
significantly adds that this definition is ἐκ τῆς δημώδους ὑπολήψεως.

The number:
spatial.

336 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

reality, and not merely the predicate of some other
reality, then every part of it must be unlimited too,
just as every part of air is air. The same thing is
implied in his statement that the Pythagorean Unlimited
was outside the heavens.” Further than this, it is
hardly safe to go. Philolaos and his followers cannot
have regarded the Unlimited in the old Pythagorean
way as Air; for, as we shall see, they adopted the
theory of Empedokles as to that “element,” and
accounted for it otherwise. On the other hand, they
can hardly have regarded it as an absolute void ; for
that conception was introduced by the Atomists. It is
enough to say that they meant by the Unlimited the ves
extensa, without analysing that conception any further.

As the Unlimited is spatial, the Limit must be
spatial too, and we should naturally expect to find that
the point, the line, and the surface were regarded as all
forms of the Limit. That was the later doctrine; but
the characteristic feature of Pythagoreanism is just that
the point was not regarded as a limit, but as the first
product of the Limit and the Unlimited, and was
identified with the arithmetical unit. According to
this view, then, the point has one dimension, the line
two, the surface three, and the solid four. In other

1 Arist. Phys. Τ', 4. 204 a 20 sqq., especially a 26, ἀλλὰ μὴν ὥσπερ ἀέρος
ἀὴρ μέρος, οὕτω καὶ ἄπειρον ἀπείρου, εἴ ye οὐσία ἐστὶ καὶ ἀρχή.

2 See Chap. II. § 53.

3 Cf. Speusippos in the extract preserved in the Zheologumena arith-
metica, p. 61 (Diels, Vors. p. 235), τὸ μὴν yap ἃ στιγμή, τὸ δὲ B γραμμή, τὸ
δὲ τρία τρίγωνον, τὸ δὲ ὃ πυραμίς. We know that Speusippos is following
Philolaos here. Arist. 7722, Z, 11. 1036 Ὁ 12, καὶ ἀνάγουσι πάντα εἰς
τοὺς ἀριθμούς, καὶ γραμμῆς Tov λόγον τὸν τῶν δύο εἶναί φασιν. The matter
is clearly put in the Scholia on Euclid (p. 78,'19, Heiberg), οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόρειοι.
τὸ μὲν σημεῖον ἀνάλογον ἐλάμβανον μονάδι, δυάδι δὲ τὴν γραμμήν, καὶ τριάδι
τὸ ἐπίπεδον, τετράδι δὲ τὸ σῶμα. καίτοι ᾿Αριστοτέλης τριαδικῶς προσεληλυ-
θέναι φησὶ τὸ σῶμα, ὡς διάστημα πρῶτον λαμβάνων τὴν γραμμήν.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 337

words, the Pythagorean points have magnitude, their
lines breadth, and their surfaces thickness. The whole
theory, in short, turns on the definition of the point

"1 It was out of such

as a unit “having position.
elements that it seemed possible to construct a
world.

146. It is clear that this way of regarding the point, The numbers
the line, and the surface is closely bound up with the ec
practice of representing numbers by dots arranged in
symmetrical patterns, which we have seen reason for
attributing to the Pythagoreans (§ 47). The science
of geometry had already made considerable advances,
but the old view of quantity as a sum of units had not
been revised, and so a doctrine such as we have
indicated was inevitable. This is the true answer to
Zeller’s contention that to regard the Pythagorean
numbers as spatial is to ignore the fact that the
doctrine was originally arithmetical rather than
geometrical. Our interpretation takes full account of
that fact, and indeed makes the peculiarities of the
whole system depend upon it. Aristotle is very
decided as to the Pythagorean points having magnitude.
“They construct the whole world out of numbers,” he
tells us, “but they suppose the units have magnitude.
As to how the first unit with magnitude arose, they
appear to be at a loss.”* Zeller holds that this is
only an inference of Aristotle’s,®> and he is probably
right in this sense, that the Pythagoreans never felt
the need of saying in so many words that points had

The identification of the point with the unit is referred to by Aristotle,
Phys. B, 3. 227 a 27.
2 Arist. Met. M, 6. 1080 b 18 sqq-, 1083 Ὁ 8 sqq.; de Caelo, Τ', τ. 300

a 16(R. P. 76a).
3. Zeller, p. 381.

22

338 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

magnitude. It does seem probable, however, that
they called them ὄγκοι.ἦ

Nor is Zeller’s other argument against the view
that the Pythagorean numbers were spatial any more
inconsistent with the way in which we have now stated
it. He himself allows, and indeed insists, that in the
Pythagorean cosmology the numbers were spatial, but
he raises difficulties about the other parts of the system.
There are other things, such as the Soul and Justice
and Opportunity, which are said to be numbers, and
which cannot be regarded as constructed of points,
lines, and surfaces.” Now it appears to me that this
is just the meaning of a passage in which Aristotle
criticises the Pythagoreans. They held, he says, that
in one part of the world Opinion prevailed, while a
little above it or below it were to be found Injustice
or Separation or Mixture, each of which was, according
to them, a number. But in the very same regions
of the heavens were to be found things having
magnitude which were also numbers. How can this
be, since Justice has no magnitude?*® This means

1 We learn from Plato, 7heaet. 148 b 1, that Theaitetos called surds, what
Euclid calls δυνάμει σύμμετρα, by the name of δυνάμεις, while rational
square roots were called μήκη. Now in 77m. 31 c 4 we find a division of
numbers into ὄγκοι and δυνάμεις, which seem to mean rational and irrational
quantities. Cf. also the use of ὄγκοι in Parm. 164d. Zeno in his fourth
argument about motion, which, we shall see (§ 163), was directed against the
Pythagoreans, used ὄγκοι for points. Aetios, i. 3, 19 (R. P. 76 Ὁ), says that
Ekphantos of Syracuse was the first of the Pythagoreans to say that their units
were corporeal. Probably, however, ‘‘ Ekphantos” was a personage in
a dialogue of Herakleides (Tannery, Arch. xi. pp. 263 sqq.), and Hera-
kleides called the monads ἄναρμοι ὄγκοι (Galen, Hist. Phil. 18; Dox. p.
610).

2 Zeller, p. 382. ᾿

3. Arist. Met. A, 8. 990 a 22 (Κ. P. 81 ε). I read and interpret thus:
“For, seeing that, according to them, Opinion and Opportunity are in
a given part of the world, and a little above or below them Injustice and
Separation and Mixture,—in proof of which they allege that each of these

THE PYTHAGOREANS 339

surely that the Pythagoreans had failed to give any
clear account of the relation between these more or less
fanciful analogies and their quasi-geometrical construc-
tion of the universe. And this is, after all, really Zeller’s
own view. He has shown that in the Pythagorean
cosmology the numbers were regarded as spatial,’ and
he has also shown that the cosmology was the whole
of the system.” We have only to bring these two
things together to arrive at the interpretation given
above.

147. When we come to details, we seem to see that
what distinguished the Pythagoreanism of this period
from its earlier form was that it sought to adapt itself
to the new theory of “elements.” It is just this which
makes it necessary for us to take up the consideration
of the system once more in connexion with the
pluralists.) When the Pythagoreans_ returned to
Southern Italy, they must have found views prevalent
there which imperatively demanded a partial recon-
struction of their own system. We do not know that
Empedokles founded a philosophical society, but there
can be no doubt of his influence on the medical school
of these regions ; and we also know now that Philolaos

is a number,—and seeing that it is also the case (reading συμβαίνῃ jwith
Bonitz) that there is already in that part of the world a number of com-
posite magnitudes (z.e. composed of the Limit and the Unlimited), because
those affections (of number) are attached to their respective regions ;—
{seeing that they hold these two things), the question arises whether the
number which we are to understand each of these things (Opinion, etc.) to
be is the same as the number in the world (2.6. the cosmologicaljnumber)
or a different one.” I cannot doubt that these are the extended numbers
which are composed (συνίσταται) of the elements of number, the limited
and the unlimited, or, as Aristotle here says, the ‘‘ affections of number,”
the odd and the even. Zeller’s view that ‘‘ celestial bodies” are meant
comes near this, but the application is too narrow. Nor is it the number
(πλῆθος) of those bodies that is in question, but their magnitude (μέγεῤο)

For other views of the passage, see Zeller, p. 391, n. I.

1 Zeller, p. 404. 2 Ibid. pp. 467 544.

The numbers
and the
elements.

340 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

played a part in the history of medicine.’ This dis-
covery gives us the clue to the historical connexion,
which formerly seemed obscure. The tradition is that
the Pythagoreans explained the elements as built up
of geometrical figures, a theory which we can study
for ourselves in the more developed form which it
attained in Plato’s 7zmaeus.” If they were to retain
their position as the leaders of medical study in Italy,
they were bound to account for the elements.

We must not take it for granted, however, that the
Pythagorean construction of the elements was exactly
the same as that which we find in Plato’s Z7zmaeus.
It has been mentioned already that there is good
reason for believing they only knew three of the regular
solids, the cube, the pyramid (tetrahedron), and the
dodecahedron.* Now it is very significant that Plato
starts from fire and earth,‘ and in the construction οἱ
the elements proceeds in such a way that the octahedron
and the icosahedron can easily be transformed into
pyramids, while the cube and the dodecahedron cannot.
From this it follows that, while air and water pass
readily into fire, earth cannot do 50, and the dodeca-

1 All this has been put in its true light by the publication of the extract
from Menon’s Ἰατρικά, on which see p. 322, ἢ. 2. .
2 In Aet. ii. 6, 5 (R. P. 80) the theory is ascribed to Pythagoras, which
is an anachronism, as the mention of ‘‘ elements” shows it must be later
than Empedokles. In his extract from the same source, Achilles says
oi Πυθαγόρειοι, which doubtless represents Theophrastos better. There is.
a. fragment of ‘‘ Philolaos” bearing on the subject (R. P. 79), where the

regular solids must be meant by ra ἐν τᾷ σφαίρᾳ σώματα.

3 See above, p. 329, ἢ. I.

4 Plato, Zim. 31 Ὁ 5.

5 Plato, Zim. 54 5 4. Itis to be observed that in 77m. 48 Ὁ 5 Plato says.
of the construction of the elements οὐδείς rw γένεσιν αὐτῶν μεμήνυκεν,
which implies that there is some novelty in the theory as he makes Timaios-
state it. If we read the passage in the light of what has been said in § 141,
we shall be inclined to believe that Plato is working out the Pythagorean
doctrine on the lines of the discovery of Theaitetos. There is another

THE PYTHAGOREANS 341

hedron is reserved for another purpose, which we shall
consider presently. This would exactly suit the
Pythagorean system; for it would leave room for a
dualism of the kind outlined in the Second Part of the
poem of Parmenides. We know that Hippasos made
Fire the first principle, and we see from the 7zmaeus
how it would be possible to represent air and water as
forms of fire. The other element is, however, earth,
not air, as we have seen reason to believe that it was
in early Pythagoreanism. That would be a natural re-
sult of the discovery of atmospheric air by Empedokles
and of his general theory of the elements. It would
also explain the puzzling fact, which we had to leave
unexplained above, that Aristotle identifies the two
“forms” spoken of by Parmenides with Fire and
Earth. All this is, of course, problematical; but it
will not be found easy to account otherwise for the
facts. |

148. The most interesting point in the theory is,
perhaps, the use made of the dodecahedron. It was
identified, we are told, with the “ sphere of the universe,”
or, as it is put in the Philolaic fragment, with the “ hull
of the sphere.” Whatever we may think of the authen-
_ ticity of the fragments, there is no reason to doubt that
this is a genuine Pythagorean expression, and it must
be taken in close connexion with the word “keel”

indication of the same thing in Arist. Gen. Corr. B, 3. 330 b 16, where we
are told that, in the Διαιρέσεις, Plato assumed three elements, but made the
middle one a mixture. This is stated in close connexion with the ascrip-
tion of Fire and Earth to Parmenides.

1 See above, Chap. IV. p. 213, n. 2.

2 Aet. ii. 6, 5 (R. P. 80) ; ““ Philolaos,” fr. 12 (=20 M.; R. P. 79). On
. the ὁλκάς, see Gundermann in Rhein. Mus. 1904, pp. 145 sqq. I agree
with him in holding that the-reading is sound, and that the word means
‘*ship,” but I think that it is the structure, not the motion, of a ship which
is the point of comparison.

The dodeca-
hedron.

342 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

applied to the central fire." The structure of the
world was compared to the building of a ship, an idea
of which there are other traces.” The key to what we
are told of the dodecahedron is given by Plato. In
the Phaedo we read that the “true earth,” if looked at
from above, is “many-coloured like the balls that are
"3 In the Timaeus the
same thing is referred to in these words: “ Further,
as there is still one construction left, the fifth, God
made use of it for the universe when he painted it.” *

made of twelve pieces of leather.

The point is that the dodecahedron approaches more
nearly to the sphere than any other of the regular
solids. The twelve pieces of leather used to make a
ball would all be regular pentagons; and, if the
material were not flexible like leather, we should have
a dodecahedron instead of a sphere. This points to
the Pythagoreans having had at least the rudiments
of the “method of exhaustion” formulated later by
Eudoxos. They must have studied the properties of
circles by means of inscribed polygons and those of
spheres by means of inscribed solids.” That gives us
a high idea of their mathematical attainments; but

1 Aet. ii. 4, 15, ὅπερ τρόπεως δίκην προὔπεβάλετο τῇ τοῦ παντὸς
«σφαίρᾳ» ὁ δημιουργὸς θεός.

95. Cf. the ὑποζώματα of Plato, Rep, 616c 3. As ὕλη generally means
‘timber ” for shipbuilding (when it does not mean firewood), I suggest
that we should look in this direction for an explanation of the technical use
of the word in later philosophy. Cf. Plato, Phzleb. 54 ¢ 1, yevéoews .. .
évexa . . . πᾶσαν ὕλην παρατίθεσθαι πᾶσιν, which is part of the answer to
the question πότερα πλοίων ναυπηγίαν ἕνεκα φὴς γίγνεσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ πλοῖα
ἕνεκα ναυπηγίας ; (2b. Ὁ 2); Zim. 69 a 6, οἷα τέκτοσιν ἡμῖν ὕλη παράκειται.

3 Plato, Phd. 110 Ὁ 6, ὥσπερ οἱ δωδεκάσκυτοι σφαῖραι with Wyttenbach’s
note,

4 Plato, Zim. 554. Neither this passage nor the last can refer to the
Zodiac, which would be described by a dodecagon, not a dodecahedron.
What is implied is the division of the heavens into twelve pentagonal
fields.

® Gow, Short History of Greek Mathematics, pp. 164 564.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 343 -

that it is not too high, is shown by the fact that the
famous lunules of Hippokrates date from the middle
of the fifth century. The inclusion of straight
and curved in the “table of opposites” under the
head of Limit and Unlimited points in the same
direction.’

The tradition confirms in an interesting way the
importance of the dodecahedron in the Pythagorean
system. According to one account, Hippasos was
drowned at sea for revealing its construction and claim-
ing the discovery as his ονη What that construction
was, we may partially infer from the fact that the
Pythagoreans adopted the pentagram or fentalpha as
their symbol. The use of this figure in later magic is
well known; and Paracelsus still employed it as a
symbol of health, which is exactly what the Pytha-
goreans called it.°

149. The view that the soul is a “harmony,” or
rather an attunement, is intimately connected with the
theory of the four elements. It cannot have belonged
to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism ; for, as shown
in Plato’s Phaedo, it is quite inconsistent with the idea
that the soul can exist independently of the body. It
is the very opposite of the belief that “any soul can
enter any body.”* On the other hand, we know also
from the Phaedo that it was accepted by Simmias and
Kebes, who had heard Philolaos at Thebes, and by
Echekrates of Phleious, who was the disciple of

1 This is pointed out by Kinkel, Gesch. der Phil. vol. i. p. 121.

2 Tambl. V. Pyth. 247. Cf. above, Chap. II. p. 117, ἢ. 3.

* See Gow, Short History of Greek Mathematics, p. 151, and the passages
there referred to, adding Schol. Luc. p. 234, 21, Rabe, rd πεντάγραμμον
ὅτι τὸ ἐν τῇ συνηθείᾳ λεγόμενον πένταλφα σύμβολον ἣν πρὸς ἀλλήλους
Πυθαγορείων ἀναγνὼριστικὸν καὶ τούτῳ ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς ἐχρῶντο.

* Arist. de An. A, 3. 407 Ὁ 20 (ΕΒ. P. 86 ο).

The Soul a
“ὁ harmony.”

‘The central
fire.

344 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Philolaos and Eurytos.' The account of the doctrine
given by Plato is quite in accordance with the view
that it was of medical origin. Simmias says: “Our
body being, as it were, strung and held together by
the warm and the cold, the dry and the moist, and
things of that sort, our soul is a sort of temperament
and attunement of these, when they are mingled with
one another well and in due proportion. If, then, our
soul is an attunement, it is clear that, when the body
has been relaxed or strung up out of measure by
diseases and other ills, the soul must necessarily perish

2 This is clearly an application of the theory

at once.
of Alkmaion (§ 96), and is in accordance with the
views of the Sicilian school of medicine. It completes
the evidence that the Pythagoreanism of the end of
the fifth century was an adaptation of the old doctrine
to the new principles introduced by Empedokles.

150. The planetary system which Aristotle attributes
to “the Pythagoreans” and Aetios to Philolaos is
sufficiently remarkable. The earth is no longer in
the middle of the world; its place is taken by a
central fire, which is not to be identified with the sun.
Round this fire revolve ten bodies. First comes the
Antichthon or Counter-earth, and next'the earth, which
thus becomes one of the planets. After the earth
comes the moon, then the sun, the five planets, and
the heaven of the fixed stars. We do not see the
central fire and the antichthon because the side of the
earth on which we live is always turned away from

1 Plato, Phd. 85 ε 544. ; and for Echekrates, 2d. 88 ἃ.

2 Plato, Phd. 86 Ὁ 7-c 5.

3 For the authorities, see R. P. 81-83. The attribution of the theory
to Philolaos is perhaps due to Poseidonios. The ‘‘three books” were
doubtless in existence by his time.

¥
“ THE PYTHAGOREANS 345

them. ‘This is to be explained by the analogy of the
moon. That body always presents the same face to
us ; and men living on the other side of it would never
see the earth. This implies, of course, that all these
bodies rotate on their axes in the same time as they
revolve round the central fire.’

It is not very easy to accept the view that this
system was taught by Philolaos. Aristotle nowhere
- mentions him in connexion with it, and in the Phaedo
‘Plato gives a description of the earth and its position
in the world which is entirely opposed to it, but is
accepted without demur by Simmias the disciple of
Philolaos.? It is undoubtedly a Pythagorean theory,
however, and marks a noticeable advance on the
Ionian views then current at Athens. It is clear too
that Plato states it as something of a novelty that the
earth does not require the support of air or anything
of the sort to keep it in its place. Even Anaxagoras
had not been able to shake himself free of that idea,
and Demokritos still held it. The natural inference
from the Phaedo would certainly be that the theory of
a spherical earth, kept in the middle of the world by
its equilibrium, was that of Philolaos himself. If so,
the doctrine of the central fire would belong to a some-
what later generation of the school, and Plato may

1 Plato attributes an axial rotation to the heavenly bodies (77m. 40 a 7),
which must be of this kind. It is quite likely that the Pythagoreans
already did so, though Aristotle was unable to see the point. He says
(de Caelo, B, 8. 290 a 24), ἀλλὰ μὴν ὅτι οὐδὲ κυλίεται τὰ ἄστρα, φανερόν " τὸ
μὲν γὰρ κυλιόμενον στρέφεσθαι ἀνάγκη, τῆς δὲ σελήνης ἀεὶ δηλόν ἐστι τὸ
καλούμενον πρόσωπον. This, of course, is just what proves it does rotate.

2 Plato, Phd. 108 e 4 sqq. Simmias assents to this doctrine in the
emphatic words Kal ὀρθῶς γε.

% The primitive character of the astronomy taught by Demokritos as
compared with that of Plato is the best evidence of the value of the Pytha-
gorean researches.

346 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

have learnt it from Archytas and his friends after he
had written the Phaedo. However that may be, it is
of such importance that it cannot be omitted here.

It is commonly supposed that the revolution of the
earth round the central fire was intended to account
for the alternation of day and night, and it is clear that
an orbital motion of the kind just described would
have the same effect as the rotation of the earth on its
axis. As the same side of the earth is always turned
to the central fire, the side upon which we live will
be turned towards the sun when the earth is on the
same side of the central fire, and turned away from it
when the earth and sun are on opposite sides. This
view appears to derive some support from the state-
ment of Aristotle that the earth “being in motion
round the centre, produces day and night.”* That
remark, however, would prove too much; for in the
Ttmaeus Plato calls the earth “the guardian and
artificer of night and day,” while at the same time he
declares that the alternation of day and night is caused
by the diurnal revolution of the heavens.” That is
explained, no doubt quite rightly, by saying that, even
if the earth were regarded as at rest, it could still be
said to produce day and night; for night is due to
the intervention of the earth between the sun and the
hemisphere opposite to it. If we remember how recent
was the discovery that night was the shadow of the
earth, we shall see how it may have been worth while
to say this explicitly.

In any case, it is wholly incredible that the heaven

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 293 ἃ 18 sqq. (R. P. 83).

2 Plato, Zim. 40 c 1, (γῆν) φύλακα καὶ δημιουργὸν νυκτός Te καὶ ἡμέρας
ἐμηχανήσατο. On the other hand, νὺξ μὲν οὖν ἡμέρα τε γέγονεν οὕτως
καὶ διὰ ταῦτα, ἣ τῆς μιᾶς καὶ φρονιμωτάτης κυκλήσεως περίοδος (39 c I).

THE PYTHAGOREANS 347

of the fixed stars should have been regarded as
stationary. That would have been the most startling
paradox that any scientific man had yet propounded,
and we should have expected the comic poets and
popular literature generally to raise the cry of atheism
at once. Above all, we should have expected Aris-
totle to say something about it. He made the circular
motion of the heavens the very keystone of his system,
and would have regarded the theory of a stationary
heaven as blasphemous. Now he argues against those
who, like the Pythagoreans and Plato, regarded the
earth as in motion;' but he does not attribute the
view that the heavens are stationary to any one. There
is no necessary connexion between the two ideas. All
the heavenly bodies may be moving as rapidly as we
please, provided that their relative motions are such
as to account for the phenomena.’

It seems probable that the theory of the earth’s
revolution round the central fire really originated in
the account given by Empedokles of the sun’s light.
The two things are brought into close connexion by
Aetios, who says that Empedokles believed in two
suns, while Philolaos believed in two or even in three.*

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 293 Ὁ 15 sqq.

2 Boeckh admitted a very slow motion of the heaven of the fixed stars,
which he at first supposed to account for the precession of the equinoxes,
though he afterwards abandoned that hypothesis (Untersuchungen, p. 93).
But, as Dreyer admits (Planetary Systems, Ὁ. 49), it is ‘not . . . necessary
with Boeckh to suppose the motion of the starry sphere to have been an
exceedingly slow one, as it might in any case escape direct observation.”

3 Aet. ii. 20, 13 (Chap. IV. p. 275, ἢ. 1); cf. 2b. 12 (of Philolaos), ὥστε
τρόπον τινὰ διττοὺς ἡλίους γίγνεσθαι, τό Te ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πυρῶδες καὶ τὸ
ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ πυροειδὲς κατὰ τὸ ἐσοπτροειδές " εἰ μή τις καὶ τρίτον λέξει τὴν ἀπὸ
τοῦ ἐνόπτρου κατ᾽ ἀνάκλασιν διασπειρομένην πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐγήν. Here τὸ ἐν
τῷ οὐρανῷ πυρῶδες is the central fire, in accordance with the use of the
word οὐρανός explained in another passage of Aetios, Stob. Zc/. i. p. 196,
18 (R. P. 81). It seems to me that these strange notices must be fragments
of an attempt to show how the heliocentric hypothesis arose from the

348 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The theory of Empedokles is unsatisfactory in so far
as it gives two inconsistent explanations of night. It
is, we have seen, the shadow of the earth; but at the
same time Empedokles recognised a fiery diurnal
hemisphere and a nocturnal hemisphere with only a
little fire in it.’ All this could be simplified by the
hypothesis of a central fire which is the true source of
light. Such a theory would, in fact, be the natural
issue of the recent discoveries as to the moon’s light
and the cause of eclipses, if that theory were extended
so as to include the sun.

The central fire received a number of mythological
names. It was called the Hestia or “hearth of the
universe,” the “house” or “ watch-tower” of Zeus, and
the “mother of the gods.” That was in the manner
of the school; but these names must not blind us to
the fact that we are dealing with a real scientific
hypothesis. It was a great thing to see that the
phenomena could best be “saved” by ἃ central
luminary, and that the earth must therefore be a re-
volving sphere like the planets. Indeed, we are almost
tempted to say that the identification of the central
fire with the sun, which was suggested for the first time
in the Academy, is a mere detail in comparison. The
great thing was that the earth should definitely take
its place among the planets ; for once it has done so,
we can proceed to search for the true “hearth” of
the planetary system at our leisure. It is probable, at
any rate, that it was this theory which made it possible

theory of Empedokles as to the sun’s light. The meaning is that the
central fire really was the sun, but that Philolaos unnecessarily duplicated
it hy supposing the visible sun to be its reflexion.

* Chap. VI. § 113.

2 Aet. i. 7,7 (R. P. 81). Procl. 2 Zim. p. 106, 22, Diehl (R. P. 83 e).

THE PYTHAGOREANS 349

for Herakleides of Pontos and Aristarchos of Samos
to reach the heliocentric hypothesis,’ and it was
certainly Aristotle’s reversion to the geocentric theory
which made it necessary for Copernicus to discover the
truth afresh. We have his own word for it that the
Pythagorean theory put him on the right track.”

151. The existence of the antichthon was also a
hypothesis intended to account for the phenomena of
eclipses. In one place, indeed, Aristotle says that the
Pythagoreans invented it in order to bring the number
of revolving bodies up to ten;* but that is a mere
sally, and Aristotle really knew better. In his work
on the Pythagoreans, we are told, he said that eclipses
of the moon were caused sometimes by the interven-
tion of the earth and sometimes by that of the
antichthon; and the same statement was made by
Philip of Opous, a very competent authority on the
matter. Indeed, Aristotle shows in another passage
exactly how the theory originated. He tells us that
some thought there might be a considerable number
of bodies revolving round the centre, though invisible

1 On these points, see Staigmiiller, Bectrage zur Gesch. der Naturwissen-
schaften im klassichen Altertume (Progr., Stuttgart, 1899); and ‘‘ Herakleides
Pontikos und das heliokentrische System” (Arch. xv. pp. 141 sqq.). Though,
for reasons which will partly appear from the following pages, I should not
put the matter exactly as Staigmiiller does, I have no doubt that he is sub-
stantially right. Diels had already expressed his adhesion to the view that
Herakleides was the real author of the heliocentric hypothesis (Ber/. S7tzé.,
1893, p. 18).

2 In his letter to Pope Paul III., Copernicus quotes Plut. Plac. iii. 13,
2-3(R. P. 83 a), and adds “‘ Inde igitur occasionem nactus, coepi et ego de
terrae mobilitate cogitare.” The whole passage is paraphrased by Dreyer,
Planetary Systems, p. 311. Cf. also the passage from the original MS.,
which was first printed in the edition of 1873, translated by Dreyer, 2. pp.
314 5464. 3 Arist. Met. A, 5. 986 a 3 (R. P. 83 b).

* Aet. ii. 29, 4, τῶν Πυθαγορείων τινὲς κατὰ τὴν ᾿Αριστοτέλειον ἱστορίαν
καὶ τὴν Φιλίππου τοῦ ᾿Οπουντίου ἀπόφασιν ἀνταυγείᾳ καὶ ἀντιφράξει τοτὲ
μὲν τῆς γῆς, τοτὲ δὲ τῆς ἀντίχθονος (ἐκλείπειν τὴν σελήνην).

"»

The
antichthon-

Planetary
motions.

350 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

to us because of the intervention of the earth, and that
they accounted in this way for there being more
eclipses of the moon than of the sun.’ This is
mentioned in close connexion with the antzchthon, so
there is no doubt that Aristotle regarded the two
hypotheses as of the same nature. The history of the
theory seems to be this. Anaximenes had assumed
the existence of dark planets to account for the
frequency of lunar eclipses (§ 29), and Anaxagoras
had revived that view (δ 135). Certain Pythagoreans *
had placed these dark planets between the earth and
the central fire in order to account for their invisibility,
and the next stage was to reduce them to a single
body. Here again we see how the Pythagoreans tried
to simplify the hypotheses of their predecessors.

152. We must not assume that even the later Pytha-
goreans made the sun, moon, and planets, including the
earth, revolve in the opposite direction to the heaven of
the fixed stars. It is true that Alkmaion is said to
have agreed with “some of the mathematicians” ?® in
holding this view, but it is never ascribed to Pythagoras
or even to Philolaos, The old theory was, as we have
seen (§ 54), that all the heavenly bodies revolved in the
same direction, from east to west, but that the planets
revolved more slowly the further they were removed

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 293 b21, ἐνίοις δὲ δοκεῖ καὶ πλείω σώματα τοιαῦτα
ἐνδέχεσθαι φέρεσθαι περὶ τὸ μέσον ἡμῖν ἄδηλα διὰ τὴν ἐπιπρόσθησιν τῆς
γῆς. διὸ καὶ τὰς τῆς σελήνης ἐκλείψεις πλείους ἢ τὰς τοῦ ἡλίου γίγνεσθαί
φασιν * τῶν γὰρ φερομένων ἕκαστον ἀντιφράττειν αὐτήν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ μόνον τὴν
γῆν.

2 It is not expressly stated that they were Pythagoreans, but it is natural
to suppose so. Such, at least, was Alexander’s opinion (Simpl. de Caelo,
Ρ. 515, 25)

3 The term οἱ μαθηματικοί is that used by Poseidonios for the Chaldzean
astrologers (Berossos). Diels, Elementum, Ὁ. 11, n. 3. As we have seen,
the Babylonians knew the planets better than the Greeks.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 351

from the heavens, so that those which are nearest the
earth are “overtaken” by those that are further away.
This view was still maintained by Demokritos, and that
it was also Pythagorean, seems to follow from what we
are told about the “harmony of the spheres.” We
have seen (§ 54) that we cannot attribute this theory
in its later form to the Pythagoreans of the fifth
century, but we have the express testimony of Aristotle
to the fact that those Pythagoreans whose doctrine he
knew believed that the heavenly bodies produced
musical notes in their courses. Further, the velocities
of these bodies depended on the distances between
them, and these corresponded to the intervals of the
octave. He distinctly implies that the heaven of the
fixed stars takes part in the concert; for he mentions
“the sun, the moon, and the stars, so great in magnitude
and in number as they are,” a phrase which cannot
refer solely or chiefly to the remaining five planets.’
Further, we are told that the slower bodies give out
a deep note and the swifter a high note. Now the
prevailing tradition gives the high note of the octave to
the heaven of the fixed stars,? from which it follows

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 9. 290 Ὁ 12 544. (R. P. 82).

? Alexander, zz Met. p. 39, 24 (from Aristotle’s work on the Pytha-
goreans), τῶν yap σωμάτων τῶν περὶ τὸ μέσον φερομένων ἐν ἀναλογίᾳ τὰς
ἀποστάσεις ἐχόντων... ποιούντων δὲ καὶ ψόφον ἐν τῷ κινεῖσθαι τῶν μὲν
βραδυτέρων βαρύν, τῶν δὲ ταχυτέρων ὀξύν. We must not attribute the
identification of the seven planets with the seven strings of the heptachord
to the Pythagoreans of this date. Mercury and Venus have in the long
run the same velocity as the sun, and we must take in the earth and the fixed
stars. We can even find room for the antichthon as προσλαμβανόμενος.

3 For the various systems, see Boeckh, Avezne Schriften, vol. iii.
pp. 169 sqq., and Carl v. Jan, ‘‘ Die Harmonie der Sphiren ” (Pz/o/. 1893,
pp- 13 sqq.). They vary with the astronomy of their authors, but they bear
witness to the fact stated in the text. Many give the highest note to Saturn
and the lowest to the Moon, while others reverse this. The system which

corresponds best, however, with the Pythagorean planetary system must
inciude the heaven of the fixed stars and the earth. It is that upon which

352 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

that all the heavenly bodies revolve in the same
direction, and that their velocity increases in proportion
to their distance from the centre.

The theory. that the proper motion of the sun,
moon, and planets is from west to east, and that they
also share in the motion from east to west of the
heaven of the fixed stars, makes its first appearance in
the Myth of Er in Plato’s Republic, and is fully worked
out in the 7zmaeus. In the Repudlic it is still associated
with the “ harmony of the spheres,” though we are not
told how it is reconciled with that theory in detail.’
In the 7zmaeus we read that the slowest of the heavenly
bodies appear the fastest and vzce versa; and, as this
statement is put into the mouth of a Pythagorean, we
might suppose the theory of a composite movement to
have been anticipated by some members at least of
that school.” That is, of course, possible; for the

the verses of Alexander of Ephesos quoted by Theon of Smyrna, p. 140,
4, are based :

γαῖα μὲν οὖν ὑπάτη τε βαρεῖά τε μέσσοθι ναίει "

ἀπλανέων δὲ σφαῖρα συνημμένη ἔπλετο νήτη, κ-τ.λ.

The ‘‘ base οἵ Heaven’s deep Organ” in Milton’s “‘ ninefold harmony ”
(Zlymn on the Nativity, xiii.) implies the reverse of this.

1 The difficulty appears clearly in Adam’s note on Republic, 617 Ὁ (vol.
ii. p. 452). There the ἀπλανής appears rightly as the νήτη, while Saturn,
which comes next to it, is the drdrn. It is inconceivable that this should
have been the original scale. Aristotle touches upon the point (de Cae/o,
B, 10. 291 a 29 sqq.); and Simplicius sensibly observes (de Caelo, p.
476, I1), οἱ δὲ πάσας τὰς σφαίρας τὴν αὐτὴν λέγοντες κίνησιν τὴν ἀπ᾽
ἀνατολῶν κινεῖσθαι καθ᾽ ὑπόληψιν (ought not the reading to be ὑπόλειψιν ?),
ὥστε τὴν μὲν Kpoviay σφαῖραν συναποκαθίστασθαι καθ᾽ ἡμέραν TH ἀπλανεῖ
παρ ὀλίγον, τὴν δὲ τοῦ Διὸς παρὰ πλέον καὶ ἐφεξῆς οὕτως, οὗτοι πολλὰς
μὲν ἄλλας ἀπορίας ἐκφεύγουσι, but their ὑπόθεσις is ἀδύνατος. This is what
led to the return to the geocentric hypothesis and the exclusion of earth
and ἀπλανής from the ἁρμονία. The only solution would have been to
make the earth rotate on its axis or revolve round the central fire in
twenty-four hours, leaving only precession for the ἀπλανής. As we have
seen, Boeckh attributed this to Philolaos, but without evidence. If he
had thought of it, these difficulties would not have arisen.

2 Tim. 39 a 5- 2, especially the words τὰ τάχιστα περιιόντα ὑπὸ τῶν

THE PYTHAGOREANS 353

Pythagoreans were singularly open to new ideas. At
the same time, we must note that the theory is even
more emphatically expressed by the Athenian Stranger
in the Laws, who is in a special sense Plato himself.
If we were to praise the runners who come in last in
the race, we should not do what is pleasing to the
competitors; and in the same way it cannot be pleasing
to the gods when we suppose the slowest of the
heavenly bodies to be the fastest. The passage un-
doubtedly conveys the impression that Plato is ex-
pounding a novel theory.’

153. We have still to consider a view, which
Aristotle sometimes attributes to the Pythagoreans,
that things were “like numbers.” He does not appear
to regard this as inconsistent with the doctrine that
things ave numbers, though it is hard to see how he
could reconcile the two.2, There is no doubt, however,
that Aristoxenos represented the Pythagoreans as
teaching that things were /zke numbers,’ and there are
other traces of an attempt to make out that this was
the original doctrine. A letter was produced, purport-
ing to be by Theano, the wife of Pythagoras, in which
she says that she hears many of the Hellenes think
Pythagoras said things were made of number, whereas

βραδυτέρων ἐφαίνετο καταλαμβάνοντα καταλαμβάνεσθαι (‘‘they appear to
be overtaken, though they overtake”).

1 Plato, Laws, 822 ἃ 4sqq. The Athenian says of the theory that he
had not heard of it in his youth nor long before (821 e€ 3). Ifso, it can
hardly have been taught by Philolaos, though it may have been by
Archytas.

2 Cf. especially Met. A, 6. 787 b10(R. P. 65d). It is not quite the
same thing when he says, as in A, 5. 985 Ὁ 23 sqq. (R. P. 2d.), that they
perceived many likenesses in things to numbers. That refers to the
numerical analogies of Justice, Opportunity, etc.

8 Aristoxenos af. Stob. i. pr. 6 (p. 20), Πυθαγόρας. . . πάντα τὰ
πράγματα ἀπεικάζων τοῖς ἀριθμοῖς.

23

Things
likenesses of
numbers.

354 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

he really said they were made according to number.’
It is amusing to notice that this fourth-century theory
had to be explained away in its turn later on, and
Iamblichos actually tells us that it was Hippasos who
said number was the exemplar of things.”

When this view is uppermost in his mind, Aristotle
seems to find only a verbal difference between Plato
and the Pythagoreans. The metaphor of “ participa-
tion” was merely substituted for that of “imitation.”
This is not the place to discuss the meaning of Plato’s
so-called “theory of ideas”; but it must be pointed
out that Aristotle’s ascription of the doctrine of
“imitation” to the Pythagoreans is abundantly
justified by the Phaedo. The arguments for immortality
given in the early part of that dialogue come from
various sources. Those derived from the doctrine of
Reminiscence, which has sometimes been supposed to
be Pythagorean, are only known to the Pythagoreans
by hearsay, and Simmias requires to have the whole
psychology of the subject explained to him.* When,
however, we come to the question what it is that our
sensations remind us of, his attitude changes. The
view that the equal itself is alone real, and that what
we call equal things are imperfect imitations of it, is
quite familiar to him.* _ He requires no proof of it, and
is finally convinced of the immortality of the soul just
because Sokrates makes him see that the theory of
forms implies it.

It is also to be observed that Sokrates does not
introduce the theory as a novelty. The reality of the

1 Stob. cl. i. p. 125, 19 (R. P. 65 ἃ).
2 Tambl. zz Wicom. p. 10, 20 (R. P. 56 c).
8 Plato, Phd. 73 ἃ sqq. + Ibid. 74a sqq.

THE PYTHAGOREANS 355

“ideas” is the sort of reality “we are always talking
about,” and they are explained in a peculiar vocabulary
which is represented as that of a school. The technical
terms are introduced by such formulas as “we say.”'
Whose theory is it? It is usually supposed to be
Plato’s own, though nowadays it is the fashion to call
it his “early theory of ideas,’ and to say that he
modified it profoundly in later life. But there are
serious difficulties in this view. Plato is very careful
to tell us that he was not present at the conversation _
recorded in the Phaedo. Did any philosopher ever

propound a new theory of his own by representing it
as already familiar to a number of distinguished living
contemporaries? It is not easy to believe that. It
would be rash, on the other hand, to ascribe the theory
to Sokrates, and there seems nothing for it but to
suppose that the doctrine of “forms” (εἴδη, ἐδέαι)
originally took shape in Pythagorean circles, perhaps
under Sokratic influence. There is nothing startling in
this. It is a historical fact that Simmias and Kebes
were not only Pythagoreans but disciples of Sokrates ;
for, by a happy chance, the good Xenophon has included
them in his list of true Sokratics.2 We have also
sufficient ground for believing that the Megarians had
adopted a like theory under similar influences, and
Plato states expressly that Eukleides and Terpsion of

1 Cf. especially the words ὃ θρυλοῦμεν ἀεί (76d 8). The phrases αὐτὸ ὃ
ἔστιν, αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτό, and the like are assumed to be familiar. ‘‘ We”
define reality by means of question and answer, in the course of which ‘‘ we”
give an account of its being (ἧς λόγον δίδομεν τοῦ εἶναι, 78 d 1, where
Aoyov . . . τοῦ εἶναι is equivalent to λόγον τῆς οὐσίας). When we have done
this, ‘‘ we” set the seal or stamp of αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν upon it (75d 2). Tech-
nical terminology implies a school. As Diels puts it (Z/ementum, p. 20),
it is in a school that ‘‘the simile concentrates into a metaphor, and the
metaphor condenses into a term.”

2 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 48.

356 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Megara were present at the conversation recorded in
the Phaedo, There were, no doubt, more “friends of
the ideas” * than we generally recognise. It is certain,
in any case, that the use of the words εἴδη and ἐδέαι to
express ultimate realities is pre-Platonic, and it seems
most natural to regard it as of Pythagorean origin.’
We have really exceeded the limits of this work by
tracing the history of Pythagoreanism down to a point
where it becomes practically indistinguishable from the
earliest form of Platonism ; but it was necessary to do
so in order to put the statements of our authorities in
their true light. Aristoxenos is not likely to have been

mistaken with regard to the opinions of the men he.

had known personally, and Aristotle’s statements must
have had some foundation. We must assume, then,
a later form of Pythagoreanism which was closely akin

to early Platonism. That, however, is not the form οἵ

it which concerns us here, and we shall see in the next
chapter that the fifth-century doctrine was of the more
primitive type already described.

1 Plato, Soph. 248 a 4.

2 See Diels, Z/ementum, pp. 16 sqq. Parmenides had already called the:
original Pythagorean ‘‘ elements” μορφαί (8 91), and Philistion called the
‘**elements” of Empedokles ἰδέαι. If the ascription of this terminology to
the Pythagoreans is correct, we may say that the Pythagorean ‘‘ forms”
‘developed into the atoms of Leukippos and Demokritos on the one hand:
__ (8 174), and into the ‘‘ideas” of Plato on the other.

CHAPTER VIII
THE YOUNGER ELEATICS..

154. THE systems we have just been studying were
all fundamentally pluralist, and they were so because
Parmenides had shown that, if we take a corporeal
monism seriously, we must ascribe to reality a number

of predicates which are inconsistent with our experience

of a world which everywhere displays multiplicity,
motion, and change (§ 97). The four “roots” of
Empedokles and the innumerable “seeds” of Anaxa-
goras were both of them conscious attempts to solve
the problem which Parmenides had raised ({§ τοῦ,
127). There is no evidence, indeed, that the Pytha-
goreans were directly influenced by Parmenides, but it
has been shown (§ 147) how the later form of their
system was based on the theory of Empedokles.
Now it was just this prevailing pluralism that Zeno
criticised from the Eleatic standpoint; and his argu-
ments were especially directed against Pythagoreanism.
Melissos, too, criticises Pythagoreanism ; but he tries
to find a common ground with his adversaries by
maintaining the old Ionian thesis that reality is
infinite.
357

J συν enw +

Relation to
predecessors.

Life.

358 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

I. ZENO OF ELEA

155. According to Apollodoros,' Zeno flourished in
Ol. LXXIX. (464-460 B.c.). This date is arrived at
by making him forty years younger than his master
Parmenides. We have seen already (ὃ 84) that the
meeting of Parmenides and Zeno with the young
Sokrates cannot well have occurred before 449 B.C.,
and Plato tells us that Zeno was at that time “nearly
forty years old.”* He must, then, have been born
about 489 B.C., some twenty-five years after Parmenides.
He was the son of Teleutagoras, and the statement of
Apollodoros that he had been adopted by Parmenides
is only a misunderstanding of an expression of Plato’s
Sophist.2 He was, Plato further tells us,* tall and of
a graceful appearance.

Like Parmenides and most other early philosophers,
Zeno seems to have played a part in the politics of his
native city. Strabo ascribes to him some share of the
credit for the good government of Elea, and says that
he was a Pythagorean.’ This statement can easily be
explained. Parmenides, we have seen, was originally a
Pythagorean, and the school of Elea was no doubt
popularly regarded as a mere branch of the larger
society. We hear also that Zeno conspired against a
tyrant, whose name is differently given, and the story

1 Diog. ix. 29 (R. P. 130 a). ‘“Apollodoros is not expressly referred to
for Zeno’s date ; but, as he is quoted for his father’s name (ix. 25; R. P.
130), there can be no doubt that he is also the source of the floruzt.

2 Plato, Parm. 127 b(R. P. 111 d). The visit of Zeno to Athens is
confirmed by Plut. Per. 4 (R. P. 130 6), where we are told that Perikles
‘*heard” him as well as Anaxagoras. It is also alluded to in A/. 1.
119 a, where we are told that Pythodoros, son of Isolochos, and Kallias,
son of Kalliades, each paid him 100 minae for instruction.

3 Plato, Soph. 241 ἃ (R. P. 130 a).

J Plato, Parm., loc. cit. 5 Strabo, vi. p. 252 (ΒΕ. P. 111 ὁ).

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 359

of his courage under torture is often repeated, though ©
with varying details.’

156. Diogenes speaks of Zeno’s “ books,” and Writings.
Souidas gives some titles which probably come from
the Alexandrian librarians through MHesychios of
Miletos.” In the Parmenides, Plato makes Zeno say
that the work by which he is best known was written
in his youth and published against his will.2 As he ©
is supposed to be forty years old at the time of the
dialogue, this must mean that the book was written
before 460 B.C. (§ 84), and it is very possible that he

'- wrote others after it. The most remarkable title which

has come down to us is that of the /xterpretation of
Empedokles. It is not to be supposed, of course, that
Zeno wrote a commentary on the Poem of Empedokles ;
but, as Diels has pointed out,* it is quite credible that
he should have written an attack on it, which was
afterwards called by that name. If he wrote a work
against the “philosophers,” that must mean the
Pythagoreans, who, as we have seen, made use of
the term in a sense of their own.’ The Dzsputations
and the Treatise on Nature may, or may not, be the
same as the book described in Plato’s Parmenides.

It is not likely that Zeno wrote dialogues, though
certain references in Aristotle have been supposed to
imply this. In the Physzcs® we hear of an argument
of Zeno’s, that any part of a heap of millet makes a

1 Diog. ix. 26, 27, and the other passages referred to in R. P. 130 Ὁ.

2 Diog. ix. 26 (R. P. 130); Suidas s.v. (R. P. 130 d).

3 Plato, Parm. 128 ἃ 6(R. P. 130 d).

4 Berl. Sitzb., 1884, p. 359.

5 See above, p. 321, ἢ. 2. It hardly seems likely that a later writer
would make Zeno argue πρὸς τοὺς φιλοσόφους, and the title given to the
book at Alexandria must be based on something contained in it.

6 Arist. Phys. H, 5. 250 a 20(R. P. 131 a).

360 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

sound, and Simplicius illustrates this by quoting a
passage from a dialogue between Zeno and Protagoras.'
If our chronology is right, there is nothing impossible
in the idea that the two men may have met; but it
is most unlikely that Zeno should have made himself
a personage in a dialogue of his own. That was a
later fashion. In another place Aristotle refers to a
passage where “the answerer and Zeno the questioner”
occurred,” a reference which is most easily to be under-
stood in the same way. Alkidamas seems to have
written a dialogue in which Gorgias figured,® and the
exposition of Zeno’s arguments in dialogue form must
always have been a tempting exercise. It appears
also that Aristotle made Alexamenos the first writer
of dialogues.*

Plato gives us a clear idea of what Zeno’s youthful
work- was like. It contained more than one “ dis-
course,” and these discourses were subdivided into
sections, each dealing with some one presupposition
of his adversaries.” We owe the preservation of Zeno’s
arguments on the one and many to Simplicius. Those

1 Simpl. Phys. p. 1108, 18 (R. P. 131). If this is what Aristotle refers
to, it is hardly safe to attribute the xeyxpirns λόγος to Zeno himself.
It is worth noting that the existence of this dialogue is another indica-
tion of Zeno’s visit to Athens at an age when he could converse with
Protagoras, which agrees very well with Plato’s representation of the matter.

Arist. Soph. Zl. 170 b 22 (R. P. 130 b). * "Chap. V. ‘p. 23%, 0. °5

4 Diog. iii. 48. It is certain that the authority whom Diogenes follows
hére took the statement of Aristotle to mean that Alexamenos was the first
yriter of prose dialogues.

δ Plato, Parm. 127d. Plato speaks of the first ὑπόθεσις of the first
λόγος, which shows that the book was really divided into separate sections.
Proclus (272 Joc.) says there were forty of these λόγοι altogether.

§ Simplicius expressly says in one place (p. 140, 30; R. P. 133) that
he is' quoting κατὰ λέξιν. I now see no reason to doubt this, as the
Academy, would certainly have a copy of the work. If so, the fact that
the fragments’are not written in Ionic is another confirmation of Zeno’s
residence at Athens.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 361

relating to motion have been preserved by Aristotle
himself ;* but, as usual, he has restated them in his

own language.

157. Aristotle in his Sophist? called Zeno the in- Dialectic.

ventor of dialectic, and this, no doubt, is substantially

true, though the beginnings at least of that method of
arguing were contemporary with the foundation of the
Eleatic school. Plato® gives us a spirited account of

the style and purpose of Zeno’s book, which he puts

into his own mouth :—

In reality, this writing is a sort of reinforcement for the
argument of Parmenides against those who try to turn it into

ridicule on the ground that, if reality is one, the argument
becomes invelved in many absurdities and contradictions.
This writing argues against those who uphold a Many, and
gives them back as good and better than they gave; its aim
is to show that their assumption of multiplicity will be involved
in still more absurdities than the assumption of unity, if it is
sufficiently worked out.

The method of Zeno was, in fact, to take one of
his adversaries’ fundamental postulates and deduce
from it two contradictory conclusions.* This is what
Aristotle meant by calling him the inventor of dialectic,
which is just the art of arguing, not from true premisses,
but from premisses admitted by the other side. The

1 Arist. Phys. Z, 9. 239 b 9 sqq.

2 Cf. Diog. ix. 25 (R. P. 130).

3 Plato, Parm. 128 c (R. P. 130 d).

4 The technical terms used in Plato’s Parmenides seem to be as ol
Zeno himself. The ὑπόθεσις is the provisional assumption of the truth
a certain statement, and takes the form εἰ πολλά ἐστι or the like. The
word does not mean the assumption of something as a foundation, but the
setting before one’s self of a statement asa problem to be solved (Ionic
ὑποθέσθαι, Attic προθέσθαι). If the conclusions which necessarily follow :
from the ὑπόθεσις (τὰ συμβαίνοντα) are impossible, the ὑπόθεσις is
** destroyed” (cf. Plato, Rep. 533 c 8, τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀναιροῦσα). The ,
author of the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς (c 1) knows the word ὑπόθεσις in a
similar sense.

.

362 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

theory of Parmenides had led to conclusions which
contradicted the evidence of the senses, and Zeno’s
object was not to bring fresh proofs of the theory
itself, but simply to show that his opponents’ view
led to contradictions of a precisely similar nature.

Zeno and 158. That Zeno’s dialectic was mainly directed
Pythagorean- : . '
τς against the Pythagoreans is certainly suggested by

Plato’s statement, that it was addressed to the
adversaries of Parmenides, who held that things were
‘a many.”' Zeller holds, indeed, that it was merely
the popular form of the belief that things are many
that Zeno set himself to confute ; 2 but it is surely not
true that ordinary people believe things to be “a many”
in the sense required. Plato tells us that the premisses
of Zeno’s arguments were the beliefs of the adversaries
of Parmenides, and the postulate from which all his
contradictions are derived is the view that space, and
therefore body, is made up of a number of discrete
units, which is just the Pythagorean doctrine. Nor
is it at all probable that Anaxagoras is “aimed αἱ.
We know from Plato that Zeno’s book was the work
of his youth.* Suppose even that it was written when
he was thirty, that is to say, about 459 B.c., Anaxagoras
had just taken up his abode at Athens at that time,”
and it is very unlikely that Zeno had ever heard of
him. There is, on the other hand, a great deal to be
said for the view that Anaxagoras had read the work
of Zeno, and that his emphatic adhesion to the doctrine

1 The view that Zeno’s arguments were directed against Pythagoreanism
has been maintained in recent times by Tannery (Sczence helléne, pp.
249 sqq.), and Baiumker (Das Problem der Materie, pp. 60 sqq.).

2 Zeller, p. 589 (Eng. trans. p. 612).

3 This is the view of Stallbaum in his edition of the Parmenzdes
(pp. 25 544.)

4 Parm., loc, cit. 5 Chap. VI. § 120.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 363

of infinite divisibility was due to the criticism of his
younger contemporary.’

It will be noted how much clearer the historical
position of Zeno becomes if we follow Plato in assign-
ing him to a somewhat later date than is usual. We
have first Parmenides, then the pluralists, and then the
criticism of Zeno. This, at any rate, seems to have
been the view which Aristotle took of the historical
development.”

159. The polemic of Zeno is clearly directed in
the first instance against a certain view of the unit.
Eudemos, in his Physics,> quoted from him the saying
that “if any one could tell him what the one was, he
would be able to say what things are.” The com-
mentary of Alexander on this, preserved by Simplicius,*
is quite satisfactory. “As Eudemos relates,” he says,
“Zeno the disciple of Parmenides tried to show that
it was impossible that things could be a many, seeing
that there was no unit in things, whereas ‘many’
means a number of units.” Here we have a clear refer-
ence to the Pythagorean view that everything may be
reduced to a sum of units, which is what Zeno denied.”

1 Cf. for instance Anaxagoras, fr. 3, with Zeno, fr. 2; and Anaxagoras,
fr. 5, with Zeno, fr. 3.

® Arist. Phys. A, 3. 187 a 1 (R. P. 134 b). See below, § 173.

8. Simpl. Phys. p. 138, 32 (R. P. 134 a).

* Simpl. Phys. p. 99, 13, ὡς γὰρ ἱστορεῖ, φησίν (᾿Αλέξανδρος), Eddnuos,
Ζήνων ὁ Παρμενίδου γνώριμος ἐπειρᾶτο δεικνύναι ὅτι μὴ οἷόν re τὰ ὄντα
πολλὰ εἶναι τῷ μηδὲν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ἕν, τὰ δὲ πολλὰ πλῆθος εἶναι
ἑνάδων. This is the meaning of the statement that Zeno ἀνήρει τὸ ἕν,
which is not Alexander’s (as implied in R. P. 134 a), but goes back to no
less an authority than Eudemos. It is perfectly correct when read in

connexion with the words τὴν yap στιγμὴν ὡς τὸ ὃν λέγει (Simpl. PAys.
p- 99, 11).

5 It is quite in order that Mr. Bertrand Russell, from the standpoint of
pluralism, should accept Zeno’s arguments as ‘‘ immeasurably subtle and
profound” (Principles of Mathematics, p. 347). We know from Pilato,
however, that Zeno meant them as a veductio ad absurdum of pluralism.

What is the
unit,?

The
Fragments.

364 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

160. The fragments of Zeno himself also show that
this was his line of argument. I give them according
to the arrangement of Diels.

(1)

If the one had no magnitude, it would not even be. . . .
But, if it is, each one must have a certain magnitude and a
certain thickness, and must be at a certain distance from
another, and the same may be said of what is in front of it;
for it, too, will have magnitude, and something will be in front
of it! It is all the same to say this once and to say it always ;
for no such part of it will be the last, nor will one thing not
be-compared with another.? So, if things are a many, they
must be both small and great, so small as not to have any
magnitude at all, and so great as to be infinite. R. P. 134.

(2)

For if it were added to any other thing it would not make it
any larger; for nothing can gain in magnitude by the addition
of what has no magnitude, and thus it follows at once that
what was added was nothing.® But if, when this is taken
away from another thing, that thing is no less; and again, if,
when it is added to another thing, that does not increase, it is
plain that what was added was nothing, and what was taken
away was nothing. R. P. 132.

(3)

If things are a many, they must be just as many as they
are, and neither more nor less. Now, if they are as many as
they are, they will be finite in number.

1 I formerly rendered ‘‘the same may be said of what surpasses it in
smallness ; for it too will have magnitude, and something will surpass it in
smallness.”” This is Tannery’s rendering, but I now agree with Diels in
thinking that ἀπέχειν refers to μέγεθος and προέχειν to πάχος. Zeno is
showing that the Pythagorean point has really three dimensions.

2 Reading, with Diels and the MSS., οὔτε ἕτερον πρὸς ἕτερον οὐκ ἔσται.
Gomperz’s conjecture (adopted in R. P.) seems to me arbitrary.

8. Zeller marks a lacuna here. Zeno must certainly have shown that
the subtraction of a point does not make a thing less; but he may have
done so before the beginning of our present fragment.

Ἐπ υ le ie.

eG eee ee eee eee eee ee eee eel eee iid

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 365

If things are a many, they will be infinite in number ; for
there will always be other things between them, and others
again between these. And so]things are infinite in number.
moe, 133.7

161. If we hold that the unit has no magnitude—
and this is required by what Aristotle calls the argu-
ment from dichotomy,’—then everything must be in-
finitely small. Nothing made up of units without
magnitude can itself have any magnitude. On the

other hand, if we insist that the units of which things

are ΕΝ are something and not nothing, we must
hold that everything is infinitely great. The line is
infinitely divisible ; and, according to this view, it will
be made up of an infinite number of units, each of
which has some magnitude. |

That this argument refers to points is proved by an
instructive passage from Aristotle’s Metaphysics? We
read there— :

If the unit is indivisible, it will, according to the pro-
position of Zeno, be nothing. That which neither makes
anything larger by its addition ‘to it, nor smaller by its sub-

_ traction from it, is not, he says, a real thing at all; for clearly

what is real must be a magnitude. And, if it is a magnitude,
it is corporeal ; for that is corporeal which is in every dimen-
sion. ‘The other things, z.e. the plane and the line, if added
in one way will make things larger, added in another they will
produce no effect ; but the point and the unit cannot make
things larger in any way.

«-.-.. --.ΚὅἍ.ὅ-

From all this it seems impossible to draw any other

1 This is what Aristotle calls ‘‘the argument from dichotomy” (PAys.
A, 3. 187 a1; R. P. 134 b). Ifa line is made up of points, we ought to
be able to answer the question, ‘‘ How many points are there in a given
line?” On the other hand, you can always divide a line or any part of it
into two halves; so that, if a line is made up of points, there will always
be more of them than any number you assign.

2 See last note: 3 Arist. AZet. B, 4. 1001 Ὁ 7.

The unit.

Space.

Motion.

366 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

”

conclusion than that the “one” against which Zeno
argued was the “one” of which a number constitute a
“many,” and that is just the Pythagorean unit.

162. Aristotle refers to an argument which seems
to be directed against the Pythagorean doctrine of
space,’ and Simplicius quotes it in this form :”

If there is space, it will be in something ; for all that is is
in something, and what is in something is in space. So space
will be in space, and this goes on ad infinitum, therefore there
is no space. R. P. 135.

What Zeno is really arguing against here is the
attempt to distinguish space from the body that.
occupies it. If we insist that body must be 222 space,
then we must go on to ask what space itself is in.
This is a “reinforcement” of the Parmenidean denial
of the void. Possibly the argument that everything

2)

must be “in” something, or must have something
beyond it, had been used against the Parmenidean
theory of a finite sphere with nothing outside it.

163. Zeno’s arguments on the subject of motion
have been preserved by Aristotle himself. The system
of Parmenides made all motion impossible, and his
successors had been driven to abandon the monistic
hypothesis in order to avoid this very consequence.
Zeno does not bring any fresh proofs of the im-
possibility of motion; all he does is to show that a
pluralist theory, such as the Pythagorean, is just as
unable to explain it as was that of Parmenides.
Looked at in this way, Zeno’s arguments are no mere

1 Arist. Phys. A, 1. 209 a 23; 3. 210 b 22 (R. P. 135 a).

‘2 Simpl. Phys. p. 562, 3 (R. P. 135). The version of Eudemos is
given in Simpl. Phys. p . 563, 26, ἀξιοῖ yap πᾶν τὸ ὃν ποῦ εἶναι " εἰ δὲ
ὁ τόπος τῶν ὄντων, ποῦ ἂν εἴη ; οὐκοῦν ἐ ἄλλῳ τόπῳ κἀκεῖνος δὴ ἐν ἄλλῳ
καὶ οὕτως εἰς τὸ πρόσω.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 367

quibbles, but mark a great advance in the conception
of quantity. They are as follows :-—

(1) You cannot get to the end of a race-course.! You
cannot traverse an infinite number of points in a finite time.
You must traverse the half of any given distance before you
traverse the whole, and the half of that again before you
can traverse it. This goes on ad infinitum, so that there
are an infinite number of points in any given space, and
you cannot touch an infinite number one by one in a finite
time.” |

(2) Achilles will never overtake the tortoise. He must
first reach the place from which the tortoise started. By that
time the tortoise will have got some way ahead. Achilles must

: then make up that, and again the tortoise will be ahead. He
is always coming nearer, but he never makes up to [1.3

The “hypothesis” of the second argument is the
same as that in the first, namely, that the line is a
_ series of points; but the reasoning is complicated by
the introduction of another moving object. The
difference, accordingly, is not a half every time, but
diminishes in a constant ratio. Again, the first
argument shows that no moving object can ever
traverse any distance at all, however fast it may move ;
the second emphasises the fact that, however slowly
it moves, it will traverse an infinite distance.

(3) The arrow in flight is at rest. For, if everything is at ,
rest when it occupies a space equal to itself, and what is in;
flight at any given moment always occupies a space equal to
itself, it cannot move.*

1 Arist. Zop~. Θ, 8. 160 Ὁ 8, Ζήνωνος (λόγος), ὅτε οὐκ ἐνδέχεται
κινεῖσθαι οὐδὲ τὸ στάδιον διελθεῖν.

2 Arist. Phys. Z, 9. 239 Ὁ1ἰ (R. P. 136). Cf. Ζ, 2. 233 a 11; ἃ 21
(ΚΕ. P. 136 a).

3 Arist. Phys. Z, 9. 239 Ὁ 14 (R. P. 137).

4 Phys. Z, 9. 239 Ὁ 30 (R. P. 138); 2. 239 Ὁ 5 (R. P. 138 a). The
latter passage is corrupt, though the meaning is plain. I have translated

368 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Here a further complication is introduced. The
moving object itself has length, and its successive
positions are not points but lines. The successive
moments in which it occupies them are still, however,
points of time. It may help to make this clear if we
remember that the flight of the arrow as represented
by the cinematograph would_be exactly of this nature.

(4) Half the time may be equal to double the time. Let
us suppose three rows of bodies,! one of which (A) is at rest
while the other two (B, C) are moving with equal velocity in
opposite directions (Fig. 1). By the time they are all in the
same part of the course, B will have passed twice as many of
the bodies in C as in A (Fig. 2).

Fic, I. FIG. 2.

A. 2 @ 9 9 ΑΦ 9 @® ®
Be.e® ee --: Be ὁ ὁ ὁ
C —.. e© © @.@ Ce @ @ @

Therefore the time which it takes to pass C is twice as
long as the time it takes to pass A. But the time which B
and C take to reach the position of A isthe same. Therefore
double the time is equal to the half.”

According to Aristotle, the paralogism here depends.
upon the assumption that an equal magnitude moving

Zeller’s version of it ef γάρ, φησίν, ἠρεμεῖ πᾶν ὅταν ἢ κατὰ τὸ ἴσον, ἔστι.
δ᾽ ἀεὶ τὸ φερόμενον ἐν τῷ νῦν κατὰ τὸ ἴσον, ἀκίνητον κιτ.λ. Of course
del means ‘‘ at any time,” not ‘‘ always,” and κατὰ τὸ ἴσον is, literally, *‘ on
a level with a space equal (to itself).” For other readings, see Zeller,
p- 598, n. 3; and Diels, Vors. p. 131, 44.

1 The word is ὄγκοι; cf. Chap. VII. p. 338, n. 1. The name is very
appropriate for the Pythagorean units, which Zeno had shown to have
length, breadth, and thickness (fr. 1).

2 Arist. Phys. Z, 9. 239 Ὁ 33 (R. P. 139). I have had to express the
argument in my own way, as it is not fully given by any of the authorities.
The figure is practically Alexander’s (Simpl. Phys. p. 1016, 14), except
that he represents the ὄγκοι by letters instead of dots. The conclusion is.
plainly stated by Aristotle (/oc. cét.), συμβαίνειν οἴεται ἴσον εἶναι χρόνον
τῷ διπλασίῳ τὸν ἥμισυν, and, however we explain the reasoning, it must.
be so represented as to lead to this conclusion.

es Oe ΩΣ ἢ δ

ΜΝ ΉΉ“-ρῖρρσ“ ΓΤ

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 369

with equal velocity must move for an equal time,
whether the magnitude with which it is equal is at
rest or in motion. That is certainly so, but we are
not to suppose that this assumption is Zeno’s own.
The fourth argument is, in fact, related to the third
just as the second is to the first. The Achilles adds
a second moving point to the single moving point of
the first argument; this argument adds a second
moving line to the single moving line of the arrow
in flight. The lines, however, are represented as a
_ series of units, which is just how the Pythagoreans
_ represented them ; and it is quite true that, if lines are
a sum of discrete units, and time is similarly a series
of discrete moments, there is no other measure of
motion possible than the number of units which each
unit passes.
This argument, like the others, is intended to bring
out the absurd conclusions which follow from the
assumption that all quantity is discrete, and what
- Zeno has really done is to establish the conception of
continuous quantity by a reductio ad absurdum of the
_ other. hypothesis. If we remember that Parmenides
_ had asserted the one to be continuous (fr. 8, 25), we
_ shall see how accurate is the account of Zeno’s method
which Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates.

— ἐμέ

II. MELISSOS OF SAMOS

164. In his Life of Perikles, Plutarch tells us, Life.
on the authority of Aristotle, that the philosopher
Melissos, son of Ithagenes, was the Samian general
who defeated the Athenian fleet in 441/o B.C. ; and it

1 Plut. Per. 26 (R. P. 141 b), from Aristotle’s Σαμίων πολιτεία.

24

The
Fragments.

370 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

was no doubt for this reason that Apollodoros fixec
his forwit in Ol. LXXXIV. (444-41 B.c.).. Beyonc
this, we really know nothing about his life. He i:
said to have been, like Zeno, a disciple of Parmenides σ᾿
but, as he was a Samian, it is possible that he was
originally a member of the Ionic school, and we shal
see that certain features of his doctrine tend to bea
out this view. On the other hand, he was certainly
convinced by the Eleatic dialectic, and renounced the
Ionic doctrine in so far as it was inconsistent with
that. We note here the effect of the increased facility
of intercourse between East and West, which wa:
secured by the supremacy of Athens.

165. The fragments which we have come from
Simplicius, and are given, with the exception of the
first, from the text of Diels.’

(1a) If nothing is, what can be said of it as of something
real P 4

1 Diog. ix. 24 (R. P. 141). It is possible, of course, that Apollodoro:
meant the first and not the fourth year of the Olympiad. That is his
usual era, the foundation of Thourioi. But, on the whole, it is more
likely that he meant the fourth; for the date of the vavapxyla would be
given with precision. See Jacoby, p. 270.

2 Diog. ix. 24 (R. P. 141).

3 It is no longer necessary to discuss the passages which used to appea
as frs. 1-5 of Melissos, as it has been proved by A. Pabst that they are
merely a paraphrase of the genuine fragments (De Mélisst Samdt fragmentzés
Bonn, 1889). Almost simultaneously I had independently come to thi
same conclusion (see the first edition, § 138). Zeller and Diels have bot!
accepted Pabst’s demonstration, and the supposed fragments have bee
relegated to the notes in the last edition of R. P. I still believe, however
that the fragment which I have numbered Ia is genuine. See next note.

4 These words come from the beginning of the paraphrase which wa:
so long mistaken for the actual words of Melissos (Simpl. Phys. p. 103
18; R. P. 142 a), and Diels has accordingly removed them along wit:
the rest. I believe them to be genuine because Simplicius, who ha‘
access to the complete work, introduces them by the words ἄρχεται τοί
συγγράμματος οὕτως, and because they are thoroughly Eleatic in characte).
It is quite natural that the first words of the book should be prefixed t:
the paraphrase.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 371

(t) What was was ever, and ever shall be. For, if it had
_ come into being, it needs must have been nothing before it
came into being. Now, if it were nothing, in no wise could
_ anything have arisen out of nothing. R. P. 142.
(2) Since, then, it has not come into being, and since it
‘is, was ever, and ever shall be, it has no beginning or end,
but is without limit. For, if it had come into being, it would
have had a beginning (for it would have begun to come into
being at some time or other) and an end (for it would have
ceased to come into being at some time or other); but, if it
_ neither began nor ended, and ever was and ever shall be, it
_has no beginning or end; for it is not possible for anything
to be ever without all being. R. P. 143.

(3) Further, just as it ever is, so it must ever be infinite in
magnitude. R. P. 143.

(4) But nothing which has a beginning or end is either
eternal or infinite. R. P. 143.

(5) If it were not one, it would be bounded by something
else. R. P. 144 ἃ:

(6) For if it is (infinite), it must be one; for if it were
two, it could not be infinite ; for then they would be bounded
by one another.’ R. P. 144.

(6a) (And, since it is one, it is alike throughout ; for if it

were unlike, it would be many and not one.) ?
(7) So then it is eternal and infinite and one and all alike.
And it cannot perish nor become greater, nor does it suffer pain
or grief. For, if any of these things happened to it, it would
no longer be one. For if it is altered, then the real must needs
not beall alike, but what was before must pass away, and what
was not must come into being. Now, if it changed by so
much as a single hair in ten thousand years, it would all
perish in the whole of time.

1 This fragment is quoted by Simpl. de Caelo, p. 557, 16 (R. P. 144).
_ The insertion of the word ‘‘ infinite ” is justified by the paraphrase (R. P.
144 a) and by ALX.G. 974 a 11, πᾶν δὲ ἄπειρον ὃν <év> εἷναι " εἰ γὰρ
δύο ἢ πλείω εἴη, πέρατ᾽ ἂν εἶναι ταῦτα πρὸς ἄλληλα.

_ 2 I have ventured to insert this, though the actual words are nowhere
_ quoted, and it is not in Diels. It is represented in the paraphrase (R. P.
145 a) and in 47.X.G. 974 a 13 (R. P. 144 a).

372 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Further, it is not possible either that its order should b
changed ; for the order which it had before does not perisl
nor does that which was not come into being. Βυΐ, sinc
nothing is either added to it or passes away or is altered, ho
can any real thing have had its order changed? For if anythin
became different, that would amount to a change ‘in its orde

Nor does it suffer pain; for a thing in pain could not a
be. For a thing in pain could not be ever, nor has it th
same power as what is whole. Nor would it be alike, if.
were in pain; for it is only from the addition or subtraction ς
something that it could feel pain, and then it would no longe
be alike. Nor could what is whole feel pain ; for then whz
was whole and what was real would pass away, and what we
not would come into being. And the same argument applic
to grief as to pain.

Nor is anything empty. For what is empty is nothing
What is nothing cannot be.

Nor does it move ; for it has nowhere to betake itself to, bu
is full. For if there were aught empty, it would betake itself t
the empty. But, since there is naught empty, it has nowher
to betake itself to.

And it cannot be dense and rare; for it is not possible fo
what is rare to be as full as what is dense, but what is rare i
at once emptier than what is dense.

This is the way in which we must pe SOE between wha
is full and what is not full. Ifa thing has room for anythin
else, and takes it in, it is not full; but if it has no room fo
anything and does not take it in, it is full.

Now, it must needs be full if there is naught empty, and :
it is full, it does not move. R. P. 145.

(8) This argument, then, is the greatest proof that it is on
alone ; but the following are proofs of it also. If there were
many, these would have to be of the same kind as I say thi.
the one is. For if there is earth and water, and air and iror:
and gold and fire, and if one thing is living and another deac|
and if things are black and white and all that men say the;
really are,—if that is so, and if we see and hear aright, eact
one of these must be such as we first decided, and they cannv’
be changed or altered, but each must be just as it is. But, ἐ.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 373

it is, we say that we see and hear and understand aright, and
yet we believe that what is warm becomes cold, and what is
cold warm; that what is hard turns soft, and what is soft
hard ; that what is living dies, and that things are born from
what lives not; and that all those things are changed, and that
what they were and what they are now are in no way alike. We
think that iron, which is hard, is rubbed away by contact with
the finger;! and so with gold and stone and everything which we
fancy to be strong, and that earth and stone are made out of
water; so that it turns out that we neither see nor know
realities. Now these things do not agree with one another.
We said that there were many things that were eternal and
had forms and strength of their own, and yet we fancy that
_ they all suffer alteration, and that they change from what we
see each time. It is clear, then, that we did not see aright
after all, nor are we right in believing that all these things are
many. They would not change if they were real, but each
thing would be just what we believed it to be; for nothing
_ is stronger than true reality. But if it has changed, what
_ was has passed away, and what was not is come into being.
: So then, if there were many things, they would have to be
just of the same nature as the one. R. P. 147.

| (9) Now, if it were to exist, it must needs be one; but
if it is one, it cannot have body ; for, if it had body it would
have parts, and would no longer be one. ΚΕ. P. 146.”

: (10) If what is real is divided, it moves ; but if it moves,
it cannot be. R. P. 144 a.3

166. It has been pointed out that Melissos was bers of
reality.

_ perhaps not originally a member of the Eleatic school ;
but he certainly adopted all the views of Parmenides
as to the true nature of reality with one remarkable
exception. He appears to have opened his treatise with

1 Reading ὁμουρέων with Bergk. Diels keeps the MS, ὁμοῦ ῥέων ; Zeller
(p. 613, n.’I) conjectures ὑπ᾽ lod ῥέων.

2 TI read εἰ μὲν οὖν εἴη with E F for the εἰ μὲν ὃν εἴη of Ὁ. The ἐὸν
which still stands in R. P. is a piece of local colour due to the editors,
Diels also now reads οὖν ( Vors. p. 149, 2).

8 Diels now reads ἀλλὰ with E for the dua of F, and attaches the word
to the next sentence,

374 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

a reassertion of the Parmenidean “ Nothing is not” (fr
1a), and the arguments by which he supported this
view are those with which we are already familias
(fr. 1). Reality, as with Parmenides, is eternal, ar
attribute which Melissos expressed in a way of his own
He argued that since everything that has come intc
being has a beginning and an end, everything that has
not come into being has no beginning or end. Aris-
totle is very severe upon him for this simple conversior
of a universal affirmative proposition ;* but, of course
his belief was not founded on that. His whole
conception of reality made it necessary for him tc
regard it as eternal.? It would be a more seriou:
matter if Aristotle were right in believing, as he
seems to have done,? that Melissos inferred that
what is must be infinite in space, because it hac
neither beginning nor end in time. This, however
seems quite incredible. As we have the fragment
which Aristotle interprets in this way (fr. 2), we are
quite entitled to understand it for ourselves, and |
cannot see anything to justify Aristotle’s assumptior

1 Arist. Phys. A, 3. 186a 7 (R. P. 143 a). Aristotle finds two flaws i
the Eleatic reasoning : (1) ψευδῆ λαμβάνουσιν ; (2) ἀσυλλόγιστοί εἰσιν αὐτῶ;
οἱ λόγοι. This is the first of these flaws. It is alsomentioned in Soph. £/
168 Ὁ 35(R. P. 22.). So Eudemos af, Simpl. Phys. p. 105, 24, οὐ γάρ
el τὸ γενόμενον ἀρχὴν ἔχει, τὸ μὴ γενόμενον ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἔχει, μᾶλλον ὃ
τὸ μὴ ἔχον ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἐγένετο. y

2 The real reason is given in the paraphrase in Simpl. Phys. p. 103, 2:
(R. P. 142 a), συγχωρεῖται yap καὶ τοῦτο ὑπὸ τῶν φυσικῶν, though o
course Melissos himself would not have put it in that way. He regardec
himself as a φυσικός like the rest ; but, from the time of Aristotle, it wa
a commonplace that the Eleatics were not φυσικοί, since they deniec
motion.

3 This has been denied by Offner, ‘‘ Zur Beurtheilung des Melissos ’
(Arch. iv. pp. 12 sqq.), but I now think he goes too far. Cf. especiall;
Top. ix. 6, ws ἄμφω ταὐτὰ ὄντα τῷ ἀρχὴν ἔχειν, τό τε γεγονὸς Kal τὰ
πεπερασμένον. The same point is made in ιϑοῤᾷ. Zl. 167 Ὁ 13 an
181 a 27.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 375

that the expression “without limit” means without
limit in space.’

167. Melissos did indeed differ from Parmenides in
holding that reality was spatially as well as temporally
infinite ; but he gave an excellent reason for this belief,
and had no need to support it by the extraordinary
argument just alluded to. What he said was that,
if it were limited, it would be limited by empty space.
This we know from Aristotle himself, and it marks a
real advance upon Parmenides. He had thought it
possible to regard reality as a finite sphere, but it
would have been difficult for him to work out this view
in detail. He would have had to say there was nothing
outside the sphere ; but no one knew better than he
that there is no such thing as nothing. Melissos saw
that you cannot imagine a finite sphere without
regarding it as surrounded by an infinite empty space ; ὃ
and as, in common with the rest of the school, he
denied the void (fr. 7), he was forced to say reality was
spatially infinite (fr. 3). It is possible that he was
influenced in this by his association with the Ionic
school. ;

From the infinity of reality, it follows that it must
be’one ; for, if it were not one, it would be bounded by
something else (fr. 5). And, being one, it must be
homogeneous throughout (fr. 6a), for that is what we

1 The words ἀλλ᾽ ἄπειρόν ἐστι mean simply ‘ but it is without limit,”
and this is simply a repetition of the statement that it has no beginning or
end. The nature of the limit can only be determined by the context, and
accordingly, when Melissos does introduce the subject of spatial infinity,
he is careful to say τὸ μέγεθος ἄπειρον (fr. 3).

2 Arist. Gen. Corr. i. 8. 325 ἃ 14, ὃν καὶ ἀκίνητον τὸ πᾶν εἶναί φασι καὶ
ἄπειρον ἔνιοι " τὸ γὰρ πέρας περαίνειν ἂν πρὸς τὸ κενόν. That this refers
to Melissos has been proved by Zeller (p. 612, n. 2).

8 Note the disagreement with Zeno (§ 162).

Reality
spatially
infinite.

Opposition to
Tonians,

376 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

mean by one. . Reality, then, is a single, homogeneous,
corporeal plenum, stretching out to infinity in space, and
going backwards and forwards to infinity in time.

168. Eleaticism was always critical, and we are not
without indications of the attitude taken up by Melissos
towards contemporary systems. The flaw which he
found in the Ionian theories was that they all assumed
some want of homogeneity in the One, which is a real
inconsistency. Further, they all allowed the possibility
of change ; but, if all things are one, change must be a
form of coming into being and passing away. If you
admit that a thing can change, you cannot maintain
that it is eternal. Nor can the arrangement of the
parts of reality alter, as Anaximander, for instance,
had held; any such change necessarily involves a
coming into being and passing away. 3

The next point made by Melissos is somewhat
peculiar. Reality, he says, cannot feel sorrow or pain ;
for that is always due to the addition or subtraction of
something, which is impossible. It is not easy to be

- sure what this refers to. Perhaps it is to the theory of

Herakleitos with its Want and Surfeit, perhaps to some-
thing of which no record has been preserved.

Motion in general * and rarefaction and condensation
in particular are impossible ; for both imply the exist-
ence of empty space. Divisibility is excluded for the
same reason. These are the same arguments as
Parmenides employed.

1 The view of Baumker that Melissos admitted ἀντιπερίστασις or motion
in pleno (Jahrb. f. ki. Phil., 1886, p. 541 ; Das Problem der Materie, p. 59)
depends upon some words of Simplicius (Phys. p. 104, 13), οὐχ ὅτι μὴ
δυνατὸν διὰ πλήρους κινεῖσθαι, ws ἐπὶ τῶν σωμάτων λέγομεν x.T.X. These
words were formerly turned into Ionic and passed off as a fragment of
Melissos. They are, however, part of Simplicius’s own argument against
Alexander, and have nothing to do with Melissos at all.

‘

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 377

169. In nearly all accounts of the system of Opposition to

Melissos, we find it stated that he denied the
corporeality of what is real,—an opinion which is
supported by a reference to fr. 9, which is certainly
quoted by Simplicius to prove this very point. If,
however, our general view as to the character of early
Greek Philosophy is correct, the statement must seem
incredible. And it will seem even more surprising
when we find that in the Metaphysics Aristotle says
that, while the unity of Parmenides seemed to be ideal,
that of Melissos was material.? Now the fragment, as
it stands in the MSS. of Simplicius? puts a purely
hypothetical case, and would most naturally be under-
stood as a disproof of the existence of something on
the ground that, if it existed, it would have to be both
corporeal and one. This cannot refer to the Eleatic
One, in which Melissos himself believed ; and, as the
argument is almost verbally the same as one of
Zeno’s,* it is natural to suppose that it also was
directed against the Pythagorean assumption of ulti-
mate units. The only possible objection is that Sim-
plicius, who twice quotes the fragment, certainly took
it in the sense usually given to 5 But it was very
natural for him to make this mistake. “The One”
was an expression that had two senses in the middle
of the fifth century B.Cc.; it meant either the whole of

1 See, however, Baumker, Das Problem der Materie, pp. 57 sqq-, who
remarks that ἐόν (or ὄν) in fr. 9 must be the predicate, as it has no article.
In his fifth edition (p. 611, n. 2) Zeller has adopted the view here taken.
He rightly observes that the hypothetical form εἰ μὲν ὃν εἴη speaks for it,
and that the subject to εἴη must be ἕκαστον τῶν πολλῶν, as with Zeno,

2 Met. A, 5. 986 Ὁ 18 (R. P. 101).

3 Brandis changed the εἴη to ἔστι, but there is no warrant for this.

4 Cf. Zeno, fr. 1, especially the words εἰ δὲ ἔστιν, ἀνάγκη ἕκαστον
μέγεθός τι ἔχειν καὶ πάχος.

5 Simpl. Phys. pp. 87, 6, and 110, 1.

Pythagoreans,

378 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

reality or the point as a spatial unit. To maintain it

Opposition to
. Anaxagoras.

in the first sense, the Eleatics were obliged to disprove
it in the second ; and so it sometimes seemed that they
were speaking of their own “One” when they really
meant the other. We have seen that the very same
difficulty was felt about Zeno’s denial of the “one.” ἢ

170. The most remarkable fragment of Melissos is,
perhaps, the last (fr. 3). It seems to be directed
against Anaxagoras ; at least the language used seems
more applicable to him than to any one else. Anaxa-
goras had admitted (ὃ 137, fiz.) that, so far as our per-
ceptions go, they do not entirely agree with his theory,
though he held this was due solely to their weakness.
Melissos, taking advantage of this admission, urges
that, if we give up the senses as the ultimate test of
reality, we are not entitled to reject the Eleatic theory.
With wonderful penetration he points out that if we
are to say, with Anaxagoras, that things are a many,
we are bound also to say that each one of them is such
as the Eleatics declared the One to be. In other
words, the only consistent pluralism is the atomic
theory.

Melissos has long been unduly depreciated owing to
the criticisms of Aristotle ; but these, we have seen, are
based mainly on a somewhat pedantic objection to the
false conversion in the early part of the argument.
Melissos knew nothing about the rules of conversion ;
and if he had, he could easily have made his reasoning
formally correct without modifying his system. His
greatness consisted in this, that not only was he the
real systematiser of Eleaticism, but he was also able to
see, before the pluralists saw it themselves, the only

1 See above, § 159, p. 363, n. 4.

THE YOUNGER ELEATICS 379

way in which the theory that things are a many could
be consistently worked out.’ It is. significant that
Polybos, the nephew of Hippokrates, reproaches those
“sophists” who taught there was only one primary

substance with “putting the doctrine of Melissos on
its feet.” *

1 Baumker, of. cét. p. 58, n. 3: ‘‘ That Melissos was a weakling is
a fable convenue that people repeat after Aristotle, who was unable to
appreciate the Eleatics in general, and in particular misunderstood Melissos
not inconsiderably.”

2 Περὶ φύσιος ἀνθρώπου, c. 1, ἀλλ᾽ ἔμοιγε δοκέουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἄνθρωποι
αὐτοὶ ἑωυτοὺς καταβάλλειν ἐν τοῖσιν ὀνόμασι τῶν λόγων αὐτῶν ὑπὸ ἀσυν-
εσίης, τὸν δὲ Μελίσσου λόγον ὀρθοῦν. The metaphors are taken from
wrestling, and were current at this date (cf. the καταβάλλοντες of
Protagoras). Plato implies a more generous appreciation of Melissos than
Aristotle’s. In Theaet. 180 6 2, he refers to the Eleatics as Μέλισσοί re
kal Ἰαρμενίδαι, and in 183 e 4 he almost apologises for giving the pre-
eminence to Parmenides.

CHAPTER IX

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS

eukippos and 171. WE have seen (§§ 31, 122) that the school of

iemokritos,

Miletos did not come to an end with Anaximenes, and
it is a striking fact that the man who gave the most
complete answer to the question first asked by Thales
was a Milesian.’ It is true that the very existence of ᾿
Leukippos has been called in question. Epicurus said
there never was such a philosopher, and the same thing
has been maintained in quite recent times.? On the
other hand, Aristotle and Theophrastos certainly made
him the originator of the atomic theory, and it still
seems possible to show they were right. ‘ Incidentally

1 Theophrastos said he was an Eleate or a Milesian (R. P. 185), while
Diogenes (ix. 30) says he was an Eleate or, according to some, an Abderite.
These statements are exactly parallel to the discrepancies about the native
cities of the Pythagoreans already noted (Chap. VII. p. 327, n. 5).
Diogenes adds that, according to others, Leukippos was a Melian, which
is acommon confusion. Aetios (i. 7. 1) calls Diagoras of Melos a Milesian
(cf. Dox. p. 14). Demokritos was called by some a Milesian (R. P. 186)
for the same reason that Leukippos is called an Eleate. We may also
compare the doubt as to whether Herodotos called himself a Halikarnassian
or a Thourian,

2 Diog. x. 13 (R. P. 185 b). The theory was revived by E. Rohde.
For the literature of the controversy, see R. P. 185 Ὁ. Diels’s refutation of
Rohde has convinced most competent judges. Brieger’s attempt to unsettle.
the question again (Hermes, xxxvi. pp. 166 sqq.) is only half-hearted, and
quite unconvincing. As will be seen, however, I agree with his main
contention that atomism comes after the systems of Empedokles and
Anaxagoras.

380

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 381

we shall see how later writers came to ignore him, and
thus made possible the sally of Epicurus.

The question is intimately bound up with that of
the date of Demokritos, who said that he was a young
man in the old age of Anaxagoras, a statement which
makes it unlikely that he founded his school at Abdera
before 420 B.C., the date given by Apollodoros for his
fioruit. Now Theophrastos stated that Diogenes of
Apollonia borrowed some of his views from Anaxagoras
and some from Leukippos,’ which can only mean that
there were traces of the atomic theory in his work.
Further, Apollonios is parodied in the Clouds of
Aristophanes, which was produced in 423 B.., from
which it follows that the work of Leukippos must have
become known considerably before that date. What
that work was, Theophrastos also tells us. It was the
Great Diakosmos usually attributed to Demokritos.*
This means further that what were known later as the
yworks of Demokritos were really the writings of the
school of Abdera, and included, as was natural, the

1 Diog. ix. 41 (R. P. 187). As Diels points out, the statement suggests
that Anaxagoras was dead when! Demokritos wrote. It is probable, too,
that it was this which made Apollodoros fix the floruzt of Demokritos just
forty years after that of Anaxagoras (Jacoby, p. 290). We cannot make
much of the other statement of Demokritos that he wrote the Μικρὸς
διάκοσμος 750 years after the fall of Troy; for we cannot be sure what
era he used (Jacoby, p. 292).

2 Theophr. af. Simpl. Phys. p. 25, 1 (R. P. 206 a).

8 This was stated by Thrasylos in his list of the tetralogies in which he
arranged the works of Demokritos, as he did those of Plato. He gives
Tetr. iii. thus: (1) Μέγας διάκοσμος (dv of περὶ Θεόφραστον Λευκίππου
φασὶν elvai); (2) Μικρὸς διάκοσμος ; (3) Κοσμογραφίη; (4) Περὲ τῶν
πλανήτων. The two διάκοσμοι would only be distinguished as μέγας and
μικρός when they came to be included in the same corpus. A quotation
purporting to be from the Περὲ νοῦ of Leukippos is preserved in Stob. i.
160. The phrase ἐν τοῖς Λευκίππου καλουμένοις λόγοις in M.X.G. 980 a 8
seems to refer to Arist. de Gen. Corr. 325 ἃ 24, Λεύκιππος δ᾽ ἔχειν φήθη
λόγους x.7.X., and would prove nothing in any case. Cf. Chap. II.
Ρ. 138, n. 4.

π ee

382 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

works of its founder. They formed, in fact, a corpus
comparable to that which has come down to us under
the name of Hippokrates, and it was no more possible
to distinguish the authors of the different treatises in
the one case than it is in the other. We need not
hesitate, for all that, to believe that Aristotle and
Theophrastos were better informed on this point than
later writers, who naturally regarded the whole mass as
equally the work of Demokritos.

Theophrastos found Leukippos described as an
Eleate in some of his authorities, and, if we may trust
analogy, that means he had settled at Elea,.’ It is
possible that his emigration to the west was connected
with the revolution at Miletos in 450-49 B.c.? In
any case, Theophrastos says distinctly that he had
been a member of the school of Parmenides, and the
way in which he speaks suggests that the founder of
that school was still at its head.® He may very
well have been so, if we accept Plato’s chronology.*
Theophrastos also appears to have said that Leukippos
“heard” Zeno, which is very credible. We shall see,
at any rate, that the influence of Zeno on his thinking
is unmistakable.”

1 See above, p. 380, ἢ. 1.

2 The aristocrats had massacred the democrats, and were overthrown
in their turn by the Athenians. Cf. [Xen.]’A@. πολ. 3, 11. The date is
fixed by C./.4. i. 22 a.

3 Theophr. af. Simpl. Pzys. p. 28, 4 (R. P. 185). Note the difference
of case in κοινωνήσας Ἰϊαρμενίδῃ τῆς φιλοσοφίας and κοινωνήσας τῆς
᾿Αναξιμένους φιλοσοφίας, which is the phrase used by Theophrastos of
Anaxagoras (p. 293, ἢ. I). The dative seems to imply a personal relation-
ship. It is quite inadmissible to render ‘‘ was familiar with the doctrine of
Parmenides,” as is done in Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 345.

4 See § 84.
5 Cf. Diog. ix. 30, οὗτος ἤκουσε Ζήνωνος (R. P. 185 b); and Hipp.
Ref. i. 12, 1, Λεύκιππος. . . Ζήνωνος ἑταῖρος. Diels conjectured that the

name of Zeno had been dropped in the extract from Theophrastos preserved
by Simplicius (Dox. 483 a 11).

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 383

The relations of Leukippos to Empedokles and
Anaxagoras are more difficult to determine. It has
become part of the case for the historical reality of
Leukippos that there are traces of atomism in the
systems of these men; but the case is strong enough
without that assumption. Besides, it lands us in
serious difficulties, not the least of which is that it
would require us to regard Empedokles and Anaxagoras
as mere eclectics like Diogenes of Apollonia.’ The
strongest argument for the view that Leukippos
influenced Empedokles is that drawn from the doctrine
of “pores”; but we have seen that this originated
with Alkmaion, and it is therefore more probable that
Leukippos derived it from Empedokles.2 We have
seen too that Zeno probably wrote against Empedokles,
and we know that he influenced Leukippos.? Nor, is
it at all probable that Anaxagoras knew anything of
the theory of Leukippos. It is true that he denied
the existence of the void; but it does not follow that
any one had already maintained that doctrine in the
atomist sense. The early Pythagoreans had spoken
of a void too, though they had confused it with
atmospheric air; and the experiments of Anaxagoras

1 This point is important, though the argument is weakened by Brieger’s
overstatement of it in Hermes, xxxvi. p. 183. He says that to assume such
a reaction as Anaxagoreanism after the atomic system had once been
discovered would be something unexampled in the history of Greek
philosophy. Diogenes of Apollonia proves the contrary. The real point
is that Empedokles and Anaxagoras were men of a different stamp. So
far as Empedokles is concerned, Gomperz states the case rightly (Greek
Thinkers, vol. i. p. 560).

2 See above, Chap. V. p. 224, n. 1; and Brieger in Hermes, xxxvi.
p- 171.

3 Diels (formerly at least) maintained both these things. See above,
p- 359, ἢ. 4; and p. 382, n. 5. If, as seems probable (8 158), Zeno
wrote his book some time between 470 and 460 B.c., Leukippos can
hardly have written his before 450 B.c., and even that is too late for him
to have influenced Empedokles. It may well have been later still.

Theophrastos
on the atomic
theory.

Leukippos and
the Eleatics.

384 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

with the A/epsydra and the inflated skins would only
have had any point if they were directed against the
Pythagorean theory. If he had really wished to
refute Leukippos, he would have had to use arguments
of a very different kind.

172. Theophrastos wrote of Leukippos as follows
in the First Book of his Opznzonus :—

Leukippos of Elea or Miletos (for both accounts are given
of him) had associated with Parmenides in philosophy. He
did not, however, follow the same path in his explanation of
things as Parmenides and Xenophanes did, but, as is believed,
the very opposite (R. P. 185). They made the All one,
immovable, uncreated, and finite, and did not even permit us
to search for what ts not; he assumed innumerable and ever-
moving elements, namely, the atoms. .And he made their
forms infinite in number, since there was no reason why they
should be of one kind rather than another, and because he
saw that there was unceasing becoming and change in things.
He held, further, that what zs is no more real than what is
not, and that both are alike causes of the things that come
into being ; for he laid down that the substance of the atoms
was compact and full, and he called them what zs, while they
moved in the void which he called what zs not, but affirmed
to be just as real as whatis. R. P. 194.

173. It will be observed that Theophrastos, while
noting the affiliation of Leukippos to the Eleatic school,
points out that his theory is, prima facie,? just the
opposite of that maintained by Parmenides. Some

1 See above, Chap. VI. § 131; and Chap. VII. § 145.

2 The words ws δοκεῖ do not imply assent to the view introduced by
them ; indeed they are used, far more often than not, in reference to beliefs
which the writer does not accept. The translation ‘‘methinks” in
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 345, is therefore most misleading,
and there is no justification for Brieger’s statement (Hermes, xxxvi. p. 165)
that Theophrastos dissents from Aristotle’s view as given in the passage
about to be quoted. We should be saved from many errors if we
accustomed ourselves to translate δοκεῖ by ‘‘is thought” or ‘‘is believed ”’
instead of by ‘‘ seems.”

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a ee ee ἊΝ οἱ τ eee eee lhl ee
᾿ ᾿

ΟΝ ΠΑ͂Ν a Nl ΣΨ ἊΝ ΎΣ δ φᾷππΠυ ἂὔψ'΄σσθν.

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LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 385

have been led by this to deny the Eleaticism of
Leukippos altogether; but this denial is really based
on the view that the system of Parmenides was
“metaphysical,” coupled with a great reluctance to
admit that so scientific a hypothesis as the atomic
theory can have had a “ metaphysical” origin. It is
really due to prejudice, and we must not suppose
Theophrastos himself believed the two theories to be
so far apart as they seem.’ As this is really the most

important point in the history of early Greek philosophy,

and as, rightly understood, it furnishes the key to the
whole development, it is worth while to transcribe a
passage of Aristotle? which explains the historical
connexion in a way that leaves nothing to be desired.

Leukippos and Demokritos have decided about all things
practically by the same method and on the same theory,
taking as their starting-point what naturally comes first. Some
of the ancients had held that the real must necessarily be
one and immovable; for, said they, empty space is not
real, and motion would be impossible without empty space
separated ffom matter 3 nor, further, could reality be a many,
if there were nothing to separate things, And it makes no
difference if any one holds that the All is not continuous, but
discrete, with its parts in contact (the Pythagorean view),
instead of holding that reality is many, not one, and that
there is empty space. For, if it is divisible at every point
there is no one, and therefore no many, and the Whole is
empty (Zeno); while, if we say it is divisible in one place

1 This prejudice is apparent all through Gomperz’s Greek Thinkers,
and seriously impairs the value of that fascinating, though somewhat
imaginative work. It is amusing to notice that Brieger, from the same
point of view, regards the custom of making Anaxagoras the last of the
Presocratics as due to theological prepossessions (Hermes, xxxvi. p. 185).
I am sorry that I cannot agree with either side; but the bitterness of the
disputants bears witness to the fundamental importance of the questions
raised by the early Greek philosophers.

2 Arist. de Gen. Corr. A, 8. 324 b 35 (R. P. 193).

25

386 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

and not in another, this looks like an arbitrary fiction; for
up to what point and for what reason will part of the Whole
be in this state and be full, while the rest is discrete? And,
on the same grounds, they further say that there can be no
motion. In consequence of these reasonings, then, going
beyond perception and overlooking it in the belief that we
ought to follow the argument, they say that the All is one
and immovable (Parmenides), and some of them that it is
infinite (JZe/issos), for any limit would be bounded by empty
space. ‘This, then, is the opinion they expressed about the
truth, and these are the reasons which led them to do so.
Now, so far as arguments go, this conclusion does seem to
follow ; but, if we appeal to facts, to hold such a view looks
like madness. No one who is mad is so far out of his
senses that fire and ice appear to him to be one; it is only
things that are right, and things that appear right from habit,
in which madness makes some people see no difference.

Leukippos, however, thought he had a theory which was
in harmony with sense-perception, and did not do away with
coming into being and passing away, nor motion, nor the
multiplicity of things. He made this concession to experience,
while he conceded, on the other hand, to those who invented
the One that motion was impossible without the void, that
the void was not real, and that nothing of what was real was
not real. ‘‘For,” said he, ‘‘that which is strictly speaking
real is an absolute plenum; but the plenum is not one. On
the contrary, there are an infinite number of them, and they
are invisible owing to the smallness of their bulk. They
move in the void (for there is a void); and by their coming
together they effect coming into. being ;. by their separation,
passing away.”

It is true that in this passage Zeno and Melissos
are not named, but the reference to them is unmistak-
able. The argument of Zeno against the Pythagoreans
is clearly given ; and Melissos was the only Eleatic who
made reality infinite, a point which is distinctly men-
tioned. We are therefore justified by Aristotle’s words

4 }
: 2

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 387

in explaining the genesis of Atomism and its relation
to Eleaticism as follows. Zeno had shown that all
pluralist systems yet known, and especially Pytha-
goreanism, were unable to stand before the arguments
from infinite divisibility which he adduced. Melissos
had used the same argument against Anaxagoras, and
had added, by way of reductio ad absurdum, that, if
there were many things, each one of them must be
such as the Eleatics held the One to be. To this
Leukippos answers, “Why not?” He admitted the
force of Zeno’s arguments by setting a limit to
: divisibility, and to each of the atoms which he thus
arrived at he ascribed all the predicates of the Eleatic
One ; for Parmenides had shown that if 22 zs, it must
have these predicates somehow. The same view is
implied in a passage of Aristotle’s Physics. “Some,”
we are there told, “surrendered to both arguments, to the
first, the argument that all things are one, if the word
zs is used in one sense only (Parmenides), by affirming
the reality of what is not; to the second, that based
on dichotomy (Zeno), by introducing indivisible magni-
tudes.” Finally, it is only by regarding the matter in
this way that we can attach any meaning to another
statement of Aristotle’s to the effect that Leukippos
and Demokritos, as well as the Pythagoreans, virtually
make all things out of numbers. Leukippos, in fact,
gave the Pythagorean monads the character of the
Parmenidean One.
174. We must observe that the atom is not mathe- Atoms.

1 Arist. Phys. A, 3. 187 a 1 (R. P. 134 Ὁ).

2 Arist. de Caelo, Τ', 4. 303 a 8, τρόπον γάρ τινα καὶ οὗτοι (Λεύκιππος
καὶ Δημόκριτος) πάντα τὰ ὄντα ποιοῦσιν ἀριθμοὺς καὶ ἐξ ἀριθμῶν. This
also serves to explain what Herakleides may have meant by attributing
the theory of corporeal ὄγκοι to the Pythagorean Ekphantos of Syracuse
(above, p. 338, n. 1).

388 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

matically indivisible, for it has magnitude; it is,
however, physically indivisible, because, like the One
of Parmenides, it contains in it no empty space.’ Each
atom has extension, and all the atoms are exactly
alike in substance.” Therefore all differences in things
must be accounted for either by the shape of the atoms
or by their arrangement. It seems probable that the
three ways in which differences arise, namely, shape,

connexion with them.? This explains, too, why the
atoms are called “ forms” or “figures,” a way of
speaking which seems to be of Pythagorean origin.‘
That they are also called φύσις " is quite intelligible
if we remember what was said of that word in
"the Introduction (§ VII.). The differences in shape,
order, and position just referred to account for the

1 The Epicureans misunderstood this point, or misrepresented it in
order to magnify their own originality (see Zeller, p. 857, n. 3; Eng. trans.
ii. p. 225, n. 2).

2 Arist. de Caelo, A, 7. 275 Ὁ 32, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εἶναί φασιν αὐτῶν
μίαν ; Phys. Τ', 4. 203 a 34, αὐτῷ (Δημοκρίτῳ) τὸ κοινὸν σῶμα πάντων ἐστὶν
ἀρχή.

8. Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 Ὁ 13 (R. P. 192); cf. de Gen. Corr. 315 Ὁ 6.
As Diels’ suggests, the illustration from the letters of the alphabet is
probably due to Demokritos. It shows, in any case, how the word
στοιχεῖον came to be used later for ‘‘element.” We must read, with
.Wilamowitz, τὸ δὲ Z τοῦ H θέσει for τὸ δὲ Z τοῦ N θέσει, the older
form of the letter Z being just an H laid upon its side (Diels, Z/ementum,
p. 13, n. I).

4 Demokritos wrote a work, Περὶ ἰδεῶν (Sext. Math. vii. 137; R. P.
204), which Diels identifies with the Περὶ τῶν διαφερόντων ῥυσμῶν of
Thrasylos, 727}. v. 3. Theophrastos refers to Demokritos, ἐν τοῖς περὶ
τῶν εἰδῶν (de Senstbus, ὃ 51). Plut. adv. Col. 1111 a, εἶναι δὲ πάντα τὰς
ἀτόμους, ἰδέας ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ καλουμένας (so the MSS, : ἰδίως, Wyttenbach ; <#>
ἰδέας, Diels). Arist. Phys. Τ', 4. 203 a 21, (Δημόκριτος) ἐκ τῆς πανσπερμίας
τῶν σχημάτων (ἄπειρα ποιεῖ τὰ στοιχεῖα). Cf. de Gen. Corr. A, 2. 315 Ὁ 7
(ΚΕ. P. 196). :

5 Arist. Phys. ©, 9. 265 Ὁ 25; Simpl. Phys. p. 1318, 33, ταῦτα yap
(τὰ ἄτομα σώματα) ἐκεῖνοι φύσιν ἐκάλουν.

4 LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 389

s “opposites,” the “elements” being regarded rather as
3 aggregates of these (πανσπερμίαι), as by Anaxagoras,’
175. Leukippos affirmed the existence both of the The void.

Full and the Empty, terms which he may have
_ borrowed from Melissos.2” As we have seen, he had
to assume the existence of empty space, which the
: Eleatics had denied, in order to make his explanation
. of the nature of body possible. Here again he is
developing a Pythagorean view. The Pythagoreans
had spoken of the void, which kept the units apart ;
but they had not distinguished it from atmospheric
‘ air (§ 53), which Empedokles had shown to be a
corporeal substance (δ 107). Parmenides, indeed, had
: formed a clearer conception of space, but only to

deny its reality. Leukippos started from this. He
admitted, indeed, that space was not real, that is to
say, corporeal; but he maintained that it existed all
the same. He hardly, it is true, had words to express
his discovery in; for the verb “to be” had hitherto
been used by philosophers only of body. But he did
his best to make his meaning clear by saying that
“what is not” (in the old corporealist sense) “is” (in
another sense) just as much as “what is.” The void
is as real as body.

It is a curious fact that the Atomists, who are
commonly regarded as the great materialists of
antiquity, were actually the first to say distinctly that
a thing might be real without being a body.

176. It might seem a hopeless task to disentangle Cosmology.
the cosmology of Leukippos from that of Demokritos,
with which it is generally identified ; but that very fact

1 Simpl. Phys. p. 36, 1 (Diels, Vors. p. 346), and R. P. 196 a.
2 Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 Ὁ 4(R. P. 192). Cf. Melissos, fr. 7 sud fin.

390 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

affords an invaluable clue. So far as we know, no one
after Theophrastos was able to distinguish the doctrines
of the two men, and it follows from this that all definite
statements about Leukippos in later writers must, in
the long run, go back to him. If we follow this up,
we shall be able to give a fairly clear account of the
system, and we shall even come across some views
which are peculiar to Leukippos and were not adopted
by Demokritos.'

We shall start from the fuller of the two doxo-
graphies in Diogenes, which comes from an epitome of
Theophrastos.” It is as follows :—

He says that the All is infinite, and that it is part full, and
part empty. These (the full and the empty), he says, are the
elements. From them arise innumerable worlds and are
resolved into them. The worlds come into being thus.
There were borne along by “abscision from the infinite”
many bodies of all sorts of figures “into a mighty void,” and
they being gathered together produce a single vortex. In it,
as they came into collision with one another and were whirled
round in all manner of ways, those which were alike were
separated apart and came to their likes. But, as they were
no longer able to revolve in equilibrium owing to their
multitude, those of them that were fine went out to the
external void, as if passed through a sieve; the rest stayed
together, and becoming entangled with one another, ran
down together, and made a first spherical structure. This
was in substance like a membrane or skin containing in itself
all kinds of bodies. And, as these bodies were borne round in
a vortex, in virtue of the resistance of the middle, the surround-
ing membrane became thin, as the contiguous bodies kept

1 Cf, Zeller, ‘‘Zu Leukippus” (Arch. xv. p. 138).

3 Diog. ix. 31 sqq. (R. P. 197, 197 c). This passage deals expressly
with Leukippos, not with Demokritos or even ‘‘ Leukippos and
Demokritos.” For the distinction between the ‘‘summary” and
‘* detailed” doxographies in Diogenes, see Appendix, § 15.

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 391

flowing together from contact with the vortex. And in this
way the earth came into being, those things which had been
borne towards the middle abiding there. Moreover, the
containing membrane was increased by the further separating
out of bodies from outside ; and, being itself carried round in
a vortex, it further got possession of all with which it had
come in contact. Some of these becoming entangled, produce
a structure, which was at first moist and muddy; but, when
they had been dried and were revolving along with the vortex
of the whole, they were then ignited and produced the sub-

stance of the heavenly bodies. The circle of the sun is the

outermost, that of the moon is nearest to the earth, and those
of the others are between these. And all the heavenly bodies
are ignited because of the swiftness of their motion; while

the sun is also ignited by the stars. But the moon only

receives a small portion of fire. The sun and the moon are
eclipsed . . . (And the obliquity of the zodiac is produced)
by the earth being inclined towards the south; and the
northern parts of it have constant snow and are cold and
frozen. And the sun is eclipsed rarely, and the moon con-
tinually, because their circles are unequal. And just as there
are comings into being of the world, so there are growths and

decays and passings away in virtue of a certain necessity, of

the nature of which he gives no clear account.

As it comes substantially from Theophrastos, this
passage is to be regarded as good evidence for the
cosmology of Leukippos, and it is confirmed in an
interesting way by certain Epicurean extracts from
the Great Diakosmos.' These, however, as is natural,
give a specially Epicurean turn to some of the
doctrines, and must therefore be used with caution.

177. The general impression which we get from
the cosmology of Leukippos is that he either ignored

1 These are to be found in Aet. i. 4 (Dox. p. 289; Vors. p. 347;
Usener, Zpicurea, fr. 308). Epicurus himself in the second epistle
(Diog. x, 88; Usener, p. 37, 7) pe ἃ the phrase ἀποτομὴν ἔχουσα ἀπὸ
τοῦ ἀπείρου. ra

Relation
to Tonic
cosmology.

The eternal
motion.

392 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

or had never heard of the great advance in the general
view of the world which was due to the later Pytha-
goreans. He is as reactionary in his detailed cos-
mology as he was daring in his general physical theory.
We seem to be reading once more of the speculations
of Anaximenes or even of Anaximander, though there
are traces of Empedokles and Anaxagoras too. The
explanation is not hard to see. Leukippos would not
learn a cosmology from his Eleatic teachers ; and, even
when he found it possible to construct one without
giving up the Parmenidean view of reality, he was
necessarily thrown back upon the older systems of
Ionia. The result was unfortunate. The astronomy
of Demokritos, so far as we know it, was still of this
childish character. There is no reason to doubt the
statement of Seneca that he did not venture to say
how many planets there were.’

This, I take it, is what gives plausibility to Gomperz’s
statement that Atomism was “ the ripe fruit on the tree
of the old Ionic doctrine of matter which had been
tended by the Ionian physiologists.”? The detailed
cosmology was certainly such a fruit, and it was
possibly over-ripe; but the atomic theory proper, in
which the real greatness of Leukippos comes out, was
wholly Eleatic in its origin. Nevertheless, it will repay
us to examine the cosmology too; for such an examina-
tion will serve better than anything else to bring out
the true nature of the historical development of which
it was the outcome.

178. Leukippos represented the atoms as having
been always in motion. Aristotle puts this in his own

1 Seneca, Q. Wat. vii. 3.
2 Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 323.

Ss ee ee. ee oe ee ee
᾿ ὮΝ a ire

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 393

way. The atomists, he says, “indolently” left it un-
explained what was the source of motion, and they
did not say what sort of motion it was. In other
words, they did not decide whether it was a “natural
motion” or one impressed on them “contrary to their
nature.”’ He even went so far as to say that they
made it “ spontaneous,” a remark which has given rise
to the erroneous view that they held it was due to
chance.” Aristotle does not say that, however; but
only that the atomists did not explain the motion of
the atoms in any of the ways in which he himself
explained the motion of the elements. They neither
ascribed to them a natural motion like the circular
motion of the heavens and the rectilinear motion of
the four elements in the sublunary region, nor did they
give them a forced motion contrary to their own nature,
like the upward motion which may be given to the
heavy elements and the downward which may be
given to the light. The only fragment of Leukippos
which has survived is an express denial of chance.
“Naught happens for nothing,” he said, “but evéry-
thing from a ground and of necessity.” *

If we put the matter historically, all this means that
Leukippos did not, like Empedokles and Anaxagoras,
find it necessary to assume a force to originate motion.
He had no need of Love and Strife or Mind, and the
reason is clear. Though Empedokles and Anaxagoras

1 Arist. Phys. ©, 1. 252 a 32 (R. P. 195 a); de Caelo, T, 2. 300 Ὁ 8
(R. P. 195); Aer. A, 4. 985 Ὁ 19 (R. P. 22.).

2 Arist. Phys, B, 4. 196 a 24 (R. P. 195d). Cicero, de nat, D. i. 66
(R. P. 2.). The latter passage is the source of the phrase ‘‘ fortuitous
concourse” (concurrere = συντρέχειν).

3 Aet. i. 25, 4 (Dox. p. 321), Λεύκιππος πάντα κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην, τὴν δ᾽
αὐτὴν ὑπάρχειν εἱμαρμένην. λέγει γὰρ ἐν τῷ Περὶ νοῦ" Οὐδὲν χρῆμα
μάτην γίγνεται, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἐκ λόγου τε καὶ ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης.

‘

]
t

The weight of
the atoms.

394. EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

had tried to explain multiplicity and motion, they had

not broken so radically as Leukippos did with the
Parmenidean One. Both of them started with a con-
dition of matter in which the “roots” or “seeds” were
mixed so as to be “all together,” and they therefore
required something to break up this unity. Leukippos,
who started with an infinite number of Parmenidean
“Ones,” so to speak, required no external agency to
separate them. What he had to do was just the
opposite. He had to give an explanation of their
coming together, and there was nothing so far to
prevent his return to the old and natural idea that
motion does not require any explanation at all.’

This, then, is what seems to follow from the
criticisms of Aristotle and from the nature of the
case ; but it will be observed that it is not consistent
with Zeller’s opinion that the original motion of the
atoms is a fall through infinite space, as in the system
of Epicurus. Zeller’s view depends, of course, on the
further belief that the atoms have weight, and that
weight is the tendency of bodies to fall, so we must
go on to consider whether and in what sense weight
is a property of the atoms.

179. As is well known, Epicurus held that the
atoms were naturally heavy, and therefore fell con-
tinually in the infinite void. The school tradition is,
however, that the “natural weight” of the atoms was
an addition made by Epicurus himself to the original
atomic system. Demokritos, we are told, assigned two
properties to atoms, magnitude and form, to which
Epicurus added a third, weight.” On the other hand,

1 Introd. § ΝΠ.
2 Aet. 1. 3, 18 (of Epicurus), συμβεβηκέναι δὲ τοῖς σώμασι τρία ταῦτα,
σχῆμα, μέγεθος, βάρος. Δημόκριτος μὲν yap ἔλεγε δύο, μέγεθός τε καὶ

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 395

Aristotle distinctly says in one place that Demokritos
held the atoms were heavier “in proportion to their
excess,” and this seems to be explained by the state-
ment of Theophrastos that, according to him, weight
depended on magnitude.’ It will be observed that,
even so, it is not represented as a primary property of
the atoms in the same sense as magnitude.

It is impossible to solve this apparent contradiction

without referring briefly to the history of Greek ideas

about weight. It is clear that lightness and weight

would be among the very first properties of body to

bé distinctly recognised as such. The necessity of
lifting burdens must very soon have led men to
distinguish them, though no doubt in some primitive
and more or less animistic form. Both weight and
lightness would be thought of as ¢hings that were im
bodies. Now it is a remarkable feature of early Greek
philosophy that from the first it was able to shake
itself free from this idea. Weight is never spoken of

as a “thing” as, for instance, warmth and cold are;

and, so far as we can see, not one of the thinkers we

σχῆμα, ὁ δὲ ᾿Επίκουρος τούτοις καὶ τρίτον βάρος προσέθηκεν " ἀνάγκη γάρ,
φησί, κινεῖσθαι τὰ σώματα τῇ τοῦ βάρους πληγῇ ἐπεὶ (‘* or else”) οὐ κινηθή-
σεται; 16. 12, 6, Δημόκριτος “τὰ πρῶτά φησι σώματα, ταῦτα δ᾽ ἣν τὰ
ναστά, βάρος μὲν οὐκ ἔχειν, κινεῖσθαι δὲ κατ᾽ ἀλληλοτυπίαν ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ.
Cic. de fato, 20, ‘vim motus habebant (atomi) a Democrito impulsionis quam
plagam ille appellat, a te, Epicure, gravitatis et ponderis.” These passages
represent the Epicurean school tradition, which would hardly venture to
misrepresent Demokritos on so important a point. His works were still
accessible. It is confirmed by the Academic tradition in de Fin. i. 17
that Demokritos taught the atoms moved ‘‘in infinito inani, in quo nihil
nec summum nec infimum nec medium nec extremum sit.” This doctrine,
we are od, os ‘* depraved ” by Epicurus.

1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. 326 a 9, καίτοι βαρύτερόν γε κατὰ τὴν ὑπεροχήν
φησιν εἶναι Δημόκριτος ἕκαστον τῶν ἀδιαιρέτων. I cannot believe this
means anything else than what Theophrastos says in his fragment on
sensation, § 61 (R. P. 199), βαρὺ μὲν οὖν καὶ κοῦφον τῷ μεγέθει διαιρεῖ
Δημόκριτος.

396 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

have studied hitherto thought it necessary to give any
explanation of it at all, or even to say anything about
it! The motions and resistances which popular theory
ascribes to weight are all explained in some other way.
Aristotle distinctly declares that none of his pre-
decessors had said anything of absolute weight and
lightness. They had only treated of the relatively
light and heavy.’

This way of regarding the popular notions of weight
and lightness is clearly formulated for the first time in
Plato’s Zimaeus. There is no such thing in the world,
we are told there, as “up” or “down.” The middle of
the world is not “down” but “just in the middle,” and
there is no reason why any point in the circumference
should be said to be “above” or “below” another. It
is really the tendency of bodies towards their kin that
makes us call a falling body heavy and the place to
which it falls “below.” Here Plato is really giving the
view which was taken more or less consciously by his
predecessors, and it is not till the time of Aristotle that
it is questioned.* For reasons which do not concern
us here, he definitely identified the circumference of

the heavens with “up” and the middle of the world

1 In Aet. i. 12, where the Jlactta regarding the heavy and light are
given, no philosopher earlier than Plato is referred to. Parmenides (fr.
8, 59) speaks of the dark element as ἐμβριθές. I do not think that there
is any other place where weight is even mentioned in the fragments of the
early philosophers.

2 Arist. de Caelo, 308 a 9, περὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν ἁπλῶς λεγομένων (βαρέων
καὶ κούφων) οὐδὲν εἴρηται παρὰ τῶν πρότερον.

3 Plato, 77m. 61 c 3 sqq.

4 Zeller says (p. 876) that in antiquity no one ever understood by weight
anything else than the property of bodies in virtue of which they move
downwards ; except that in such systems as represent all forms of matter
as contained in a sphere, ‘‘ above” is identified with the circumference and
“below” with the centre. As to that, I can only say that no such theory
of weight is to be found in the fragments of the early philosophers or is
anywhere ascribed to them, while Plato expressly denies it.

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 397

with “down,” and equipped the four elements with
natural weight and lightness that they might perform
their rectilinear motions between them. As, however,
Aristotle believed there was only one world, and as he
did not ascribe weight to the heavens proper, the effect
of this reactionary theory upon his cosmical system
was not great; it was only when Epicurus tried to
combine it with the infinite void that its true character
emerged. It seems to me that the nightmare of
Epicurean atomism can only be explained on the
assumption that an Aristotelian doctrine was violently
adapted to a theory which really excluded it. It is
totally unlike anything we meet with in earlier days.
This brief historical survey suggests at once that it
is only in the vortex that the atoms acquire weight
and lightness,’ which are, after all, only popular names
for facts which can be further analysed. We are told
that Leukippos held that one effect of the vortex was
that like atoms were brought together with their likes.’
In this way of speaking we seem to see the influence
of Empedokles, though the “likeness” is of another
kind. It is the finer atoms that are forced to the
circumference, while the larger tend to the centre. We

1 The Aristotelian criticisms which may have affected Epicurus are
such as we find in de Caelo, 275 b 29 sqq. Aristotle there argues that,
as Leukippos and Demokritos made the φύσις of the atoms one, they were
bound to give them a single motion. That is just what Epicurus did, but
Aristotle’s argument implies that Leukippos and Demokritos did not.
Though he gave the atoms weight, Epicurus could not accept Aristotle’s
view that some bodies are naturally light. The appearance of lightness is
due to ἔκθλιψις, the squeezing out of the smaller atoms by the larger.

2 In dealing with Empedokles, Aristotle expressly makes this distinction.
Cf. de Caelo, B, 13, especially 295 a 32 sqq., where he points out that
Empedokles does not account for the weight of bodies on the earth (οὐ γὰρ
H ye δίνη πλησιάζει πρὸς ἡμᾶς), nor for the weight of bodies before the
vortex arose (πρὶν γενέσθαι τὴν δίνην).

3 Diog., Joc. ctt. (p. 390).

398 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

may express that by saying that the larger are heavy
and the smaller light, and this will amply account for
everything Aristotle and Theophrastos say; for there
is no passage where the atoms outside the vortex are
distinctly said to be heavy or light.’

There is a striking confirmation of the view just
given in the atomist cosmology quoted above.” We
are told there that the separation of the larger and
smaller atoms was due to the fact that they were “no
longer able to revolve. in equilibrium owing to their
number,” which implies that they had previously been
in a state of “equilibrium” or “equipoise.” Now the
word icoppomia has no necessary implication of weight
in Greek. A ῥοπή is a mere leaning or inclination in
a certain direction, which may be caused by weight or
anything else. The state of ἰσορροπία is therefore
that in which the tendency in one direction is exactly
equal to the tendency in any other, and such a state
is more naturally described as the absence of weight!
than as the presence of opposite weights neutralising
one another. That way of looking at it may be useful
from the point of view of later science, but it is not safe
to attribute it to the thinkers of the fifth century B.c.

If we no longer regard the “eternal motion” of the
premundane and extramundane atoms as due to their
weight, there is no reason for describing it as a fall.
None of our authorities do as a matter of fact so describe
it, nor do they tell us in any way what it was. It is
safest to say that it is simply a confused motion this

1 This seems to be in the main the view of Dyroff, Demokritstudien
(1899), pp. 31 sqq., though I should not say that lightness and weight only
arose in connexion with the atoms of the earth (p. 35). If we substitute
‘© world” for *‘ earth,” we shall be nearer the truth,

2 See above, p. 390.

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 399

way and that.’ It is possible that the comparison of
the motion of the atoms of the soul to that of the
motes in a sunbeam coming through a window, which
Aristotle attributes to Demokritos,’ is really intended
as an illustration of the original motion of the atoms
still surviving in the soul. The fact that it is also a
_ Pythagorean comparison? in no way tells against this ;
for we have seen that there is a real connexion
between the Pythagorean monads and the atoms. It is
also significant that the point of the comparison appears
to have been the fact that the motes in the sunbeam
move even when there is no wind, so that it would be
a very apt illustration indeed of the motion inherent in

— eS T.).hClUle

7. =_= —_—. =~ - «9

the atoms apart from the secondary motions produced by
impact and collision. That, however, is problematical ;
it only serves to suggest the sort of motion which it
is natural to suppose that Leukippos gave his atoms.
180. But what are we to say of the vortex itself The vortex.

which produces these effects? Gomperz observes that
they seem to be “the precise contrary of what they
should have been by the laws of physics”; for, “as
every centrifugal machine would show, it is the heaviest

:

1 This view was independently advocated by Brieger (Die Urbewegung
der Atome und die Weltentstehung bet Leucipp und Demokrit, 1884) and
Liepmann (Die Mechanik der Leucipp-Demokritschen Atome, 1885),
both of whom unnecessarily weakened their position by admitting
that weight is an original property of the atoms. On the other hand,
Brieger denies that the weight of the atoms is the cause of their original
motion, while Liepmann says that before and outside the vortex there is
only a latent weight, a Pseudoschwere, which only comes into operation
in the world. It is surely simpler to say that this weight, since it produces
no effect, does not yet exist. Zeller rightly argues against Brieger and
Liepmann that, if the atoms have weight, they must fall; but, so far as I
can see, nothing he says tells against their theory as I have restated it,
Gomperz adopts the Brieger-Liepmann explanation, See also Lortzing,
Jahresber., 1903, pp. 136 sqq.

2 Arist. de An. A, 2. 403 b 28 sqq. (R. P. 200).

8 bid, A, 2. 404 ἃ 17 (ΚΕ. P. 86 8).

400 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

substances which are hurled to the greatest distance.” *
Are we to suppose that Leukippos was ignorant of this
fact, which was known to Anaxagoras, though Gomperz
is wrong in supposing there is any reason to believe
that Anaximander took account of it?? Now we
know from Aristotle that all those who accounted for
the earth being in the centre of the world by means
of a vortex appealed to the analogy of eddies in wind
or water,®? and Gomperz supposes that the whole theory
was an erroneous generalisation of this observation. If
we look at the matter more closely, we can see, I think,
that there is no error at all.

We must remember that all the parts of the vortex
are in contact, and that it is just this contact (ἐπίψαυσις)
by which the motion of the outermost parts is com-
municated to those within them. The larger bodies
are more able to resist this communicated motion than
the smaller, and in this way they make their way to
the centre where the motion is least, and force the
smaller bodies out. This resistance is surely just the
ἀντέρεισις τοῦ μέσου which is mentioned in the doxo-
graphy of Leukippos,* and it is quite in accordance
with this that, on the atomist theory, the nearer a
heavenly body is to the centre, the slower is its
revolution.” There is no question of “centrifugal

1 Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, i. p. 339.

2 For Empedokles, see Chap. V. p. 274; Anaxagoras, see Chap. VI.
Ρ. 312; and for Anaximander, Chap. I. p. 69, n. 1.

3 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 295 a 10, ταύτην γὰρ τὴν αἰτίαν (sc. τὴν
δίνησιν) πάντες λέγουσιν ἐκ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὑγροῖς Kal περὶ τὸν ἀέρα συμβαι-
νόντων ᾿ ἐν τούτοις γὰρ ἀεὶ φέρεται τὰ μείζω καὶ τὰ βαρύτερα πρὸς τὸ
μέσον τῆς δίνης.

4 Diog. ix. 32. Cf. especially the phrases ὧν κατὰ τὴν τοῦ μέσου
ἀντέρεισιν περιδινουμένων, συμμενόντων ἀεὶ τῶν συνεχῶν κατ᾽ ἐπίψαυσιν

τῆς δίνης, and συμμενόντων τῶν ἐνεχθέντων ἐπὶ τὸ μέσον.
5 Cf. Lucr. v. 621 564.

J

᾿
;
4
.
a
)

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 401

force” at all, and the analogy of eddies in air and
water is quite satisfactory.

181. When we come to details, the reactionary
character of the atomist cosmology is very manifest.
The earth was shaped like a tambourine, and floated
on the air." It was inclined towards the south because
the heat of that region made the air thinner, while the

ice and cold of the north made it denser and more

able to support the earth. This accounts for the
obliquity of the zodiac. Like Anaximander (§ 19),
Leukippos held that the sun was further away than the
stars, though he also held that these were further
away than the moon. This certainly suggests that he
made no clear distinction between the planets and the
fixed stars. He does, however, appear to have known
the theory of eclipses as given by Anaxagoras.‘
Such other pieces of information as have come down
to us are mainly of interest as showing that, in some
important respects, the doctrine of Leukippos was not

_the same as that taught afterwards by Demokritos.°

182. Aetios expressly attributes to Leukippos the

1 Aet. iii. 3, 10, quoted above, p. 83, n. 2.
2 Aet. iii, 12, 1, Λεύκιππος παρεκπεσεῖν τὴν γῆν els τὰ μεσημβρινὰ

Μέρη διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς μεσημβρινοῖς ἀραιότητα, dre δὴ πεπηγότων τῶν

βορείων διὰ τὸ κατεψῦχθαι τοῖς κρυμοῖς, τῶν δὲ ἀντιθέτων πεπυρωμένων.

8 Diog. ix. 33, εἶναι δὲ τὸν τοῦ ἡλίου κύκλον ἐξώτατον, τὸν δὲ τῆς
σελήνης προσγειότατον, {τοὺς 5é> τῶν ἄλλων μεταξὺ τούτων.

4 From Diog., Joc. cit. (supra, p. 391), it appears that he dealt with the

question of the greater frequency of lunar as compared with solar eclipses.
- It seems to have been this which led him to make the circle of the moon
- smaller than that of the stars.

5 Diels pointed out that Leukippos’s explanation of thunder (πυρὸς
ἐναποληφθέντος νέφεσι παχυτάτοις ἔκπτωσιν ἰσχυρὰν βροντὴν ἀποτελεῖν
ἀποφαίνεται, Aet. iii. 3, 10) is quite different from that οἵ Demokritos
(βροντὴν. . . ἐκ συγκρίματος ἀνωμάλου τὸ περιειληφὸς αὐτὸ νέφος πρὸς
τὴν κάτω φορὰν ἐκβιαζομένου, ἐδ. 11). The explanation given by Leukippos

_ is derived from that of Anaximander, while Demokritos is influenced by
| Anaxagoras. See Diels, 35 Phélol.- Vers. 97, 7.

26

The earth and
the heavenly
bodies.

Perception.

402 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

doctrine that the objects of sense-perception exist “ by
law” and not by nature’ This must come from
Theophrastos ; for, as we have seen, all later writer:
quote Demokritos only. A further proof of the
correctness of the statement is that we also finc
it attributed to Diogenes of Apollonia, who, a:
Theophrastos tells us, derived some of his views from
Leukippos. There is nothing surprising in this
Parmenides had already declared the senses to be
deceitful, and said that colour and the like were only

” 2 and Empedokles had also spoken of coming

“ names,
into being and passing away as only “names.”? I
is not likely that Leukippos went much further thar
this. It would probably be wrong to credit him with
Demokritos’s clear distinction between genuine anc
“bastard” knowledge, or that between what are now
called the primary and secondary qualities of matter.’
These distinctions imply a conscious epistemologica!
theory, and all we are entitled to say is that the germ:
of this were already to be found in the writings Οἱ
Leukippos and his predecessors. Of course, these dc
not make Leukippos a sceptic any more than Em-
pedokles or Anaxagoras, whose remark on this subject
(fr. 21a) Demokritos is said to have quoted witl
approval.°
There appear to be sufficient grounds for ascribing:

1 Aet. iv. 9, 8, of μὲν ἄλλοι φύσει τὰ αἰσθητα, Λεύκιππος δὲ Δημόκριτο:
καὶ ᾿Απολλώνιος νόμῳ. See Zeller, Arch. ν. p. 444.

2 Chap. IV. p. 200, ἢ. 3. The remarkable parallel quoted by Gomper:
(p. 321) from Galilei, to the effect that tastes, smells, and colours om séen:
altro che puri nomi should, therefore, have been cited to illustrat:
Parmenides rather than Demokritos.

3 See p. 240, fr. 8.

4 For these see Sext. Jazh. vii. 135 (R. P. 204).

5 Sext. vii. 140, ““ ὄψις yap ἀδήλων τὰ φαινόμενα," ὥς φησιν ’Avataryédpa.:,
ὃν ἐπὶ τούτῳ Δημόκριτος ἐπαινεῖ.

LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS 403

the theory of perception by means of simulacra or
εἴδωλα, which played such a part in the systems of
Demokritos and Epicurus, to Leukippos.’ It is a very
natural development of the Empedoklean theory of |
“effluences” (§ 118). It hardly seems likely, however, |
that he went into great detail on the subject, and it
is safer to credit Demokritos with the elaboration of the
theory.

183. We have seen incidentally that there is a wide Importance of
divergence of opinion among recent writers as to the ——
place of Atomism in Greek thought. The question at
_ issue is really whether Leukippos reached his theory
on what are called “metaphysical grounds,” that is,

from a consideration of the Eleatic theory of reality, or
whether, on the contrary, it was a pure development of
Ionian science. The foregoing exposition will suggest
the true answer. So far as his general theory of the
physical constitution of the world is concerned, it has
been shown, I think, that it was derived entirely from
Eleatic and Pythagorean sources, while the detailed
cosmology was in the main a more or less successful
attempt to make the older Ionian beliefs fit into this
new physical theory. In any case, his greatness
consisted in his having been the first to see how body
must be regarded if we take it to be ultimate reality.
The old Milesian theory had found its most adequate
expression in the system of Anaximenes (§ 31), but of
course rarefaction and condensation cannot be clearly
represented except on the hypothesis of molecules or
atoms coming closer together or going further apart in

1 See Zeller, ‘‘ Zu Leukippus” (Arch. xv. p. 138). The doctrine is
attributed to him in Aet. iv. 13, 1 (Dox. p. 403); and Alexander, de Sensu,
__ pp. 24, 14 and 56, 10, also mentions his name in connexion with it. This
| must come from Theophrastos,

404. EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

space. Parmenides had seen that very clearly (fr. 2),
and it was the Eleatic criticism which forced Leukippos
to formulate his system as he did. Even Anaxagoras
took account of Zeno’s arguments about divisibility
(§ 128), but his system of qualitatively different “seeds ”
was lacking in that simplicity which has always been
the chief attraction of atomism.

CHAPTER X

es ECLECTICISM AND REACTION

184. WITH Leukippos our story should properly come The

‘* bankruptcy

to an end; for he had really answered the question of science.”

first asked by Thales. We have seen, however, that,
though his theory of matter was of a most original and
daring kind, he was not equally successful in his
attempt to construct a cosmology, and this seems to
have stood in the way of the recognition of the atomic
theory for what it really was. We have noted the
growing influence of medicine, and the consequent
substitution of an interest in detailed investigation for
the larger cosmological views of an earlier time,
and there are several treatises in the Hippokratean
corpus which give us a clear idea of the interest which
now prevailed.’ Leukippos had shown that “the
doctrine of Melissos,’? which seemed to make all
science impossible, was not the only conclusion that
could be drawn from the Eleatic premisses, and he had
gone on to give a cosmology which was substantially
of the old Ionic type. The result at first was simply
that all the old schools revived and had a short period
of renewed activity, while at the same time some new

1 Cf. what is said in Chap. IV. p. 167, n. 2, of the Περὶ διαίτης. The
Περὶ ἀνθρώπου φύσιος and the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς are invaluable

documents for the attitude of scientific men to cosmological theories at this
date. 2 Cf. Chap. VIII. p. 379, n. 2.

405

Moisture.

406 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

schools arose which sought to accommodate the older
views to those of Leukippos, or to make them more
available for scientific purposes by combining them in
an eclectic fashion. None of these attempts had any
lasting importance or influence, and what we have to
consider in this chapter is really one of the periodical
“bankruptcies of science” which mark the close of one
chapter in its history and announce the beginning of a
new one.

I. HIPPON OF SAMOS

185. Hippon of Samos or Kroton belonged to the
Italian school of medicine.’ We know very little
indeed of him except that he was a contemporary of
Perikles. From a scholiast on Aristophanes? we learn
that Kratinos satirised him in his Panoptaz; and Aristotle
mentions him in the enumeration of early philosophers
given in the First Book of the Metaphysics, though
only to say that the inferiority of his intellect deprives
him of all claim to be reckoned among them.

With regard to his views, the most precise statement
is that of Alexander, who doubtless follows Theo-
phrastos. It is to the effect that he held the primary
substance to be Moisture, without deciding whether it
was Water or Air.* We have the authority of Aris-
totle ° and Theophrastos, represented by Hippolytos,° for

1 Aristoxenos said he was a Samian (R. P. 219 a). In Menon’s afrika
he is called a Krotoniate, while others assign him to Rhegion or Meta-
pontion. This probably means that he was affiliated to the Pythagorean
medical school. The evidence of Aristoxenos is, in that case, all the more
valuable. Hippon is mentioned along with Melissos in Iamblichos’s
Catalogue of Pythagoreans (V. Pyth. 267).

2 Schol. on Clouds, 94 sqq.

3 Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 a 3 (R. P. 219 a).

4 Alexander in 7722. p. 26, 21 (R. P. 219).

5 Arist. de An. A, 2. 405 b2(R. P. 220).

6 Hipp. Ref. i. 16 (R. P. 221).

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 407

saying that this theory was supported by physiological
arguments of the kind common at the tine. His other
views belong to the history of Medicine.

Till quite recently no fragment of Hippon was known
to exist, but a single one has now been recovered from
the Geneva Scholia on Homer.’ It is directed against
the old assumption that the “waters under the earth”
are an independent source of moisture, and runs thus :

The waters we drink are all from the sea; for if wells were
deeper than the sea, then it would not, doubtless, be from the
sea that we drink, for then the water would not be from the
sea, but from some other source. But as it is, the sea is
deeper than the waters, so all the waters that are above the
sea come from it. R. P. 219 b.

We observe here the universal assumption that
water tends to rise from the earth, not to sink into it.

Along with Hippon, Idaios of Himera® may just be
mentioned. We really know nothing of him except
that he held air to be the primary substance. The
fact that he was of Sicilian origin is, however, suggestive.

II. DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA —— ὁὋὉὃ

186. After discussing the three great representatives
of the Milesian school, Theophrastos went on to say :

And Diogenes of Apollonia, too, who was almost the latest
of those who gave themselves up to these studies, wrote most
of his work in an eclectic fashion, agreeing in some points with
Anaxagoras and in others with Leukippos. He, too, says that
the primary substance of the universe is Air infinite and eternal,

1 Schol. Genav. p. 197, 19. Cf. Diels in Arch, iv. p. 653. The extract
comes from the ‘Ounpixd of Krates of Mallos.
2 Sext. adv. Math. ix. 360.

Date.

Writings.

408 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

from which by condensation, rarefaction, and change of state,
the form of everything else arises. R. P. 206 a.!

This passage shows that the Apolloniate was some-
what later in date than the statement in Laertios
Diogenes” that he was contemporary with Anaxagoras
would lead us to suppose, and the fact that he is
satirised in the Clouds of Aristophanes points in the
same direction.2 Of his life we know next to nothing,
He was the son of Apollothemis, and came from
Apollonia in Crete.* The Ionic dialect in which he
wrote is no objection to this ; it was the regular dialect
for cosmological works.°

The fact that Diogenes was parodied in the Clouds
suggests that he had found his way to Athens ; and we
have the excellent authority of Demetrios Phalereus °
for saying that the Athenians treated him in the usual
way. He excited so great dislike as nearly to imperil
his life.

187. Simplicius affirms that Diogenes wrote several
works, though he allows that only one survived till his
own day, namely, the Περὶ φύσεως. This statement is

1 On this passage see Diels, ‘‘ Leukippos und Diogenes von Apollonia ”
(Rhein. Mus, xlii. pp. 1 sqq.). Natorp’s view that the words are merely
those of Simplicius (zd. xli. pp. 349 sqq.) can hardly be maintained.

2 Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206). The statement of Antisthenes, the writer
of Successtons, that he had ‘‘heard” Anaximenes is due to the usual
confusion, He was doubtless, like Anaxagoras, ‘‘an associate of the
philosophy of Anaximenes.” Cf. Chap. VI. § 122.

8 Aristoph. Clouds, 227 sqq., where Sokrates speaks of ‘‘ mixing his
subtle thought with the kindred air,” and especially the words ἡ γῆ βίᾳ |
ἕλκει πρὸς αὑτὴν τὴν ἱκμάδα τῆς φροντίδος. For the ixuds, see Beare,
Ρ. 259. Cf. also Eur. 770. 884, ὦ γῆς ὄχημα κἀπὶ γῆς ἕδραν ἔχων κ.τ.λ.

4 Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206). 5 Cf. Chap. VII. pp. 327 sqq.

6 Diog. ix. 57, τοῦτόν φησιν ὁ Φαληρεὺς Δημήτριος ἐν τῇ Σωκράτους
ἀπολογίᾳ διὰ μέγαν φθόνον μικροῦ κινδυνεῦσαι ᾿Αθήνησιν. Diels follows
Volkmann in holding that this is a note on Anaxagoras which has been
inserted in the wrong place. I do not think this is necessary, though it is
certainly possible.

7 Simpl. Phys. p. 151, 24 (R. P. 207 8).

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 409

based upon references in the surviving work itself, and
is not to be lightly rejected. In particular, it is very
‘credible that he wrote a tract Against the Sophists, that
is to say, the pluralist cosmologists of the day.’ That
we wrote a Meteorology and a book called The Nature
/ of Man is also quite probable. This would be a
physiological or medical treatise, and perhaps the
famous fragment about the veins comes from it.”

188. The work of Diogenes seems to have been
preserved: in the Academy; practically all the fairly
extensive fragments which we still have are derived

from Simplicius. I give them as they are arranged by
Diels :—

(1) In beginning any discourse, it seems to me that one
should make one’s starting-point something indisputable, and
one’s expression simple and dignified. R. P. 207.

(2) My view is, to sum it all up, that all things are
differentiations of the same thing, and are the same thing.
And this is obvious; for, if the things which are now
in this world—earth, and water, and air and fire, and the
other things which we see existing in this world,—if any
one of these things, I say, were different from any other,
different, that is, by having a substance peculiar to itself;
and if it were not the same thing that is often changed and
differentiated, then things could not in any way mix with
one another, nor could they do one another good or harm.
Neither could a plant grow out of the earth, nor any animal
nor anything else come into-being unless things were com-
posed in such a way as to be the same. Bout all these things
arise from the same thing; they are differentiated and take
different forms at different times, and return again to the
same thing. R. P. 208.

1 Simplicius says Πρὸς φυσιολόγους, but he adds that Diogenes called
them σοφισταί, which is the older word. This is, so far, in favour of the
genuineness of the work.

2 Diels gives this as fr. 6 ( Vors. p. 350). I have omitted it, as it really
belongs to the history of Medicine.

The
Fragments.

410 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

(3) For it would not be possible for it to be divided as it
is without intelligence, so as to keep the measures of all things,
of winter and summer, of day and night, of rains and winds
and fair weather. And any one who cares to reflect will find
that everything else is disposed in the best possible manner.
Ro Pi 29,

(4) And, further, there are still the following great proofs.
Men and all other animals live upon air by breathing it, and
this is their soul and their intelligence, as will be clearly
shown in this work; while, when this is taken away, they die,
and their intelligence fails. R. P. 210.

(5) And my view is, that that which has intelligence is
what men call air, and that all things have their course
steered by it, and that it has power over all things. For this
very thing I hold to be a god,! and to reach everywhere, and
to dispose everything, and to be in everything; and there is
not anything which does not partake in it. Yet no single
thing partakes in it just in the same way as another; but
there are many modes both of air and of intelligence. For it
undergoes many transformations, warmer and colder, drier
and moister, more stable and in swifter motion, and it has
many other differentiations in it, and an infinite number of
colours and savours. And the soul of all living things is the
same, namely, air warmer than that outside us and in which
we are, but much colder than that near the sun. And this
warmth is not alike in any two kinds of living creatures, nor,
for the matter of that, in any two men; but it does not differ
much, only so far as is compatible with their being alike. At
the same time, it is not possible for any of the things which
are differentiated to be exactly like one another till they all
once more become the same.

(6) Since, then, differentiation is multiform, living creatures

are multiform and many, and they are like one another neither _

1 The MSS. of Simplicius have ἔθος, not θεός ; but I adopt Usener’s
certain correction. It is confirmed by the statement of Theophrastos, that
the air within us is “ἃ small portion of the god” (de Sens. 42); and by
Philodemos (Dox. p. 536), where we read that Diogenes praises Homer,
τὸν ἀέρα γὰρ αὐτὸν Ala νομίζειν φησίν, ἐπειδὴ πᾶν εἰδέναι τὸν Ala λέγει
(cf. Cic. Mat. D. i, 12, 29).

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 411

in appearance nor in intelligence, because of the multitude of
differentiations. At the same time, they all live, and see, and
hear by the same thing, and they all have their intelligence
from the same source. R. P. 211.

(7) And this itself is an eternal and undying body, but of
those things ἢ some come into being and some pass away.

(8) But this, too, appears to me to be obvious, that it is
both great, and mighty, and eternal, and undying, and of
great knowledge. R. P. 209.

That the chief interest of Diogenes was a physio-
| logical one, is clear from his elaborate account of the
veins, preserved by Aristotle? It is noticeable, too,
that one of his arguments for the underlying unity of
all substances is that without this it would be impossible
to understand how one thing could do good or harm
to another (fr. 2). In fact, the writing of Diogenes is
essentially of the same character as a good deal of
the pseudo-Hippokratean ‘literature, and there is much
to be said for the view that the writers of these curious
tracts made use of him very much as they did of
Anaxagoras and Herakleitos.’

189. Like Anaximenes, Diogenes regarded Air as
the primary substance; but we see from his arguments
that he lived at a time when other views had become
prevalent. He speaks clearly of the four Empedoklean
elements (fr. 2), and he is careful to attribute to Air

1 The MSS. of Simplicius have τῷ δέ, but surely the Aldine τῶν δέ is
right. ;

2 Arist. Hist. An. T, 2. 511 Ὁ 30.

3 See Weygoldt, ‘‘ Zu Diogenes von Apollonia” (Arch. i. pp. 161 sqq.).
Hippokrates himself represented just the opposite tendency to that of those
writers. His great achievement was the separation of medicine from
philosophy, a separation most beneficial to both (Celsus, i. pr.). This is
why the Hippokratean corpus contains some works in which the ‘‘ sophists ”
are denounced and others in which their writings are pillaged. To the
latter class belong the Περὶ διαίτης and the Ilept φυσῶν ; to the former,
especially the Περὶ dpxains larpixijs.

Cosmology.

——— aa

412 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

the attributes of Nous as taught by Anaxagoras (fr. 4).
The doxographical tradition as to his cosmological
views is fairly preserved :—

Diogenes of Apollonia makes air the element, and holds
that all things are in motion, and that there are innumerable
worlds. And he describes the origin of the world thus.
When the All moves and becomes rare in one place and dense
in another, where the dense met together it formed a mass,
and then the other things arose in the same way, the lightest
parts occupying the highest position and producing the sun.
[Plut.] Strom. fr. 12 (R. P. 215).

Nothing arises from what is not nor passes away into what
isnot. The earth is round, poised in the middle, having
received its shape through the revolution proceeding from the
warm and its solidification from the cold. Diog. ix. 57
(R. P. 215).

The heavenly bodies were like pumice-stone. He thinks
they are the breathing-holes of the world, and that they are
red-hot. et. il. 13, 5 =Stob. i. 508 (R. P. 215).

The sun was like pumice-stone, and into it the rays from
the aether fix themselves. Aet. ii. 20, το. The moon was a
pumice-like conflagration. Jd. ii. 25, το.

Along with the visible heavenly bodies revolve invisible
stones, which for that very reason are nameless; but they
often fall and are extinguished on the earth like the stone star _
which fell down flaming at Aigospotamos.' Jd, 11. 13, 9.

We have here nothing more than the old Ionian
doctrine with a few additions from more recent sources.
Rarefaction and condensation still hold their place in
the explanation of the opposites, warm and cold, dry
and moist, stable and mobile (fr. 5). The differentia-
tions into opposites which Air may undergo are, as
Anaxagoras had taught, infinite in number; but all
may be reduced to the primary opposition of rare and

1 See Chap. VI. p. 292, ἢ. I.

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 413

dense. We may gather, too, from Censorinus! that
ἢ _/Diogenes did not, like Anaximenes, speak of earth and
water as arising from Air by condensation, but rather
of blood, flesh, and bones. In this he followed
Anaxagoras (§ 130), as it was natural that he should.
That portion of Air, on the other hand, which was
rarefied became fiery, and produced the sun and
heavenly bodies. The circular motion of the world is
due to the intelligence of the Air, as is‘also the division
of all things into different forms of body and the
observance of the “measures” by these forms.”

Like Anaximander (§ 20), Diogenes regarded the
sea as the remainder of the original moist state, which
had been partially evaporated by the sun, so as to
separate out the remaining earth.? The earth itself is
round, that is to say, it is a disc: for the language of
the doxographers does not point to the spherical form.‘
Its solidification by the cold is due to the fact that cold
is a form of condensation.

Diogenes did not hold with the earlier cosmologists
that the heavenly bodies were made of air or fire, nor
yet with Anaxagoras, that they were stones. They
were, he said, pumice-like, a view in which we may
trace the influence of Leukippos. They were earthy,
indeed, but not solid, and the celestial fire permeated
their pores. And this explains why we do not see
the dark bodies which, in common with Anaxagoras,
he held to revolve along with the stars. They really
are solid stones, and therefore cannot be penetrated
by the fire. It was one of these that fell into the

1 Censorinus, de die natali, 6, 1 (Dox. p. 190).

2 On the ‘‘ measures” see Chap, III. § 72.

8 Theophr. a. Alex. in Meteor. p. 67, 1 (Dox. p. 494).
4 Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 215).

nimals and
lants. |

414 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Aigospotamos. Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes affirmed
that the inclination of the earth happened subsequently
to the rise of animals.’

We are prepared to find that Diogenes held the
doctrine of innumerable worlds; for it was the old
Milesian belief, and had just been revived by Anaxa-
goras and Leukippos. He is mentioned with the rest
in the Placita; and if Simplicius classes him and
Anaximenes with Herakleitos as holding the Stoic
doctrine of successive formations and destructions of
a single world, he has probably been misled by the
“ accommodators.” ”

190. Living creatures arose from the earth, doubt-
less under the influence of heat. Their souls, of course,
were air, and their differences were due to the various
degrees in which it was rarefied or condensed (fr. 5).
No special seat, such as the heart or the brain, was
assigned to the soul; it was simply the warm air
circulating with the blood in the veins.

The views of Diogenes as to generation, respiration,
and the blood, belong to the history of Medicine ; ὅ his
theory of sensation too, as it is described by Theo-
phrastos,* need only be mentioned in passing. Briefly
stated, it amounts to this, that all sensation is due to
the action of air upon the brain and other organs,
while pleasure is aeration of the blood. But the details
of the theory can only be studied properly in connexion
with the Hippokratean writings ; for Diogenes does not

1 Aet. ii. 8, 1 (R. P. 215).

2 Simpl. Phys. p. 1121, 12. See Chap. I. p. 83, ἢ. 1.

3 See Censorinus, quoted in Dox. p. 191.

4 Theophr. de Sens. 39 sqq. (R. P. 213, 214). For a full account, see
Beare, pp. 41 sqq., 105, 140, 169, 209, 258. As Prof. Beare remarks,
Diogenes ‘‘ is one of the most interesting of the pre-Platonic psychologists ”

(p. 258).

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 415

really represent the old cosmological tradition, but a
/ fresh development. of reactionary philosophical views
combined with an entirely new enthusiasm for detailed
investigation and accumulation of facts.

III. ARCHELAOS OF ATHENS

191. The last of the early cosmologists was
Archelaos of Athens, who was a disciple of Anaxa-
goras, He is also said to have been the teacher of
Sokrates, a statement by no means so improbable as
is sometimes supposed.” There is no reason to doubt
the tradition that Archelaos succeeded Anaxagoras in
the school at Lampsakos.2 We certainly hear of
Anaxagoreans,* though their fame was soon obscured
by the rise of the Sophists, as we call them.

192. On the cosmology of Archelaos, Hippolytos ὃ
writes as follows :—

Archelaos was by birth an Athenian, and the son of
Apollodoros. He spoke of the mixture of matter in a similar
way to Anaxagoras, and of the first principles likewise. He
held, however, that there was a certain mixture immanent
even in Nous. And he held that there were two efficient
causes which were separated off from one another, namely,
the warm and the cold. The former was in motion, the
latter at rest. When the water was liquefied it flowed to the
centre, and there being burnt up it turned to earth and air,
the latter of which was borne upwards, while the former took
up its position below. These, then, are the reasons why the
earth is at rest, and why it came into being. It lies in the

1 Diog. ii. 16 (R. P. 216).

2 See Chiapelli in Arch. iv. pp. 369 sqq.

8 Euseb. P. Z. p. 504, c 3, ὁ δὲ ᾿Αρχέλαος ἐν Λαμψάκῳ διεδέξατο τὴν
σχολὴν τοῦ ᾿Αναξαγόρου.

4 ᾿Αναξαγόρειοι are mentioned by Plato (Ογαΐ. 400 Ὁ 6), and often by the
Aristotelian commentators.

5 Hipp. Ref. i. 9 (R. P. 218).

Cosmology.

416 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

_ centre, being practically no appreciable part of the universe.
(But the air rules over all things),! being produced by the
burning of the fire, and from its original combustion comes
the substance of the heavenly bodies. Of these the sun is
the largest, and the moon second; the rest are of various
sizes. He says that the heavens were inclined, and that then
the sun made light upon the earth, made the air transparent,
and the earth dry; for it was originally a pond, being high at
the circumference and hollow in the centre. He adduces as
a proof of this hollowness that the sun does not rise and set
at the same time for all peoples, as it ought to do if the earth
-were level. As to animals, he says that when the earth was
first being warmed in the lower part where the warm and the
cold were mingled together, many living creatures appeared,
and especially men, all having the same manner of life, and
deriving their sustenance from the slime; they did not live
long, and later on generation from one another began. And
men were distinguished from the rest, and set up leaders, and
laws, and arts, and cities, and so forth. And he says that
Nous is implanted in all animals alike; for each of the
animals, as well as man, makes use of Nous, but some
quicker and some slower.

It is not necessary to say much with regard to this
theory, which in many respects contrasts unfavourably
with its predecessors. It is clear that, just as Diogenes
had tried to introduce certain Anaxagorean ideas into
the philosophy of Anaximenes, so Archelaos sought to
bring Anaxagoreanism nearer to the old Ionic views
by supplementing it with the opposition of warm and
cold, rare and dense, and by stripping Nous of that
simplicity which had marked it off from the other
“things” in his master’s system. It was probably for
this reason, too, that Nous was no longer regarded as
the maker of the world. Leukippos had made such a

1 Inserting τὸν δ᾽ ἀέρα κρατεῖν τοῦ παντός, as suggested by Roeper.
* Aet. i. 7, 4=Stob. i, 56 (R. P. 217 a).

ECLECTICISM AND REACTION 417

force unnecessary. It may be added that this twofold
relation of Archelaos to his predecessors makes it very
credible that, as Aetios tells us,’ he believed in in-
numerable worlds; both Anaxagoras and the older
Ionians upheld that doctrine.

193. The cosmology of Archelaos, like that of Conclusion.
Diogenes, has all the characteristics of the age to
which it belonged—an age of reaction, eclecticism,
and investigation of detail.2 Hippon of Samos and
Idaios of Himera represent nothing more than the
feeling that philosophy had run into a blind alley,
from which it could only escape by trying back.
The Herakleiteans at Ephesos, impenetrably wrapped
up as they were in their own system, did little but
exaggerate its paradoxes and develop its more fanciful
side.» It was not enough for Kratylos to say with
Herakleitos (fr. 84) that you cannot step twice into
the same river; you could not do so even once.*
But in nothing was the total bankruptcy of the early
cosmology so clearly shown as in the work of Gorgias,
entitled Substance or the Non-existent, in which an
absolute nihilism was set forth and based upon the
Eleatic dialectic. The fact is that philosophy, so long
as it clung to its old presuppositions, had nothing more
to say; for the answer of Leukippos to the question of

1 Aet. ii. 1, 3.

2 Windelband, § 25. .The period is well described by Fredrich,
Hippokratische Untersuchungen, pp. 130 sqq. It can only be treated fully
in connexion with the Sophists.

8 For an amusing picture of the Herakleiteans see Plato, 722. 179 e.
The new interest in language, which the study of rhetoric had called into
life, took with them the form of fantastic and arbitrary etymologising, such
as is satirised in Plato’s Cratylus.

4 Arist. Met. T, 5. 10102 12. He refused even to speak, we are told,
and only moved his finger.

> Sext. adv. Math, vii. 65 (R. P. 235); AZ.X.G. 979 a 13 (R. P. 236).

27

418 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Thales was really final. Fresh life must be given to
the speculative impulse by the raising of new problems,
those of knowledge and conduct, before any further

progress was possible ; and this was done by _ the>
_“Sophists” and Sokrates. Then, in the hands of
~ Demokritos and Plato, philosophy took a new form,

-. ......

and started on a : fresh course. Ἂς

APPENDIX

THE SOURCES
A,—PHILOSOPHERS

1. Ir is not very often that Plato allows himself to dwell upon
the history of philosophy as it was before the rise of ethical
and epistemological inquiry ; but when he does, his guidance

is simply invaluable. His artistic gift and his power of enter-

ing into the thoughts of other men enabled him to describe
the views of early philosophers in a thoroughly objective
manner, and he never, except in a playful and ironical way,
sought to read unthought-of meanings into the words of his

_ predecessors. Of special value for our purpose are his con-

trast between Empedokles and Herakleitos (Soph, 242 d), and
his account of the relation between Zeno and Parmenides
(Parm. 128 a).

See Zeller, “ Plato’s Mittheilungen tiber friihere und gleich-

_ zeitige Philosophen” (A7ch. v. pp. 165 544.) ; and Index, s.v.
Plato. °

2. Asarule, Aristotle’s statements about early philosophers

are less historical than Plato’s. Not that he failed to under-
_ stand the facts, but he nearly always discusses them from the
᾿ς point of view of his own system. He is convinced that his
_ own philosophy accomplishes what all previous philosophers
_ had aimed at, and their systems are therefore regarded as

“lisping” attempts to formulate it (AZe/. A, 10. 993 ἃ 15).
It is also to be noted that Aristotle regards some systems in a
419 274

Plato.

Aristotle

Stoics.

Skeptics.

Neoplatonists.

420 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

much more sympathetic way than others. He is distinctly
unfair to the Eleatics, for instance.

It is often forgotten that Aristotle derived much of his
information from Plato, and we must specially observe that
he more than once takes Plato’s irony too literally.

See Emminger, Die Vorsokratischen Philosophen nach den
Berichten des Artstoteles, 1878. Index, s.v. Aristotle.

3. The Stoics, and especially Chrysippos, paid great
attention to early philosophy, but their way of regarding it
was simply an exaggeration of Aristotle’s. They did not con-
tent themselves with criticising their predecessors from their
own point of view; they seem really to have believed that the
early poets and thinkers held views hardly. distinguishable
from theirs. ‘The word συνοικειοῦν, which Cicero renders by
accommodare, was used by Philodemos to denote this method
of interpretation,! which has had serious results upon our
tradition, especially in the case of Herakleitos (p. 157).

_ 4. The same remarks apply mutatis mutandis to the
Skeptics. The interest of such a writer as Sextus Empiricus
in early philosophy is to show that skepticism went back to an
early date—as far as Xenophanes, in fact. But what he tells
us is often of value; for he frequently quotes early views as
to knowledge and sensation in support of his thesis.

5. Under this head we have chiefly to consider the com-
mentators on Aristotle in so far as they are independent of the
Theophrastean tradition. Their chief characteristic is what
Simplicius calls εὐγνωμοσύνη, that is, a liberal spirit of inter-
pretation, which makes all early philosophers agree with one
another in upholding the doctrine of a Sensible and an

1 Cf. Οἷς. De nat. D. i. 15, 41: “ἘΠῚ haec quidem (Chrysippus) in primo
libro de natura deorum, in secundo autem vult Orphei, Musaei, Hesiodi
Homerique fabellas accommodare ad ea quae ipse primo libro de deis
immortalibus dixerat, ut etiam veterrimi poetae, qui haec ne suspicati
quidem sunt, Stoici fuisse videantur.” Cf. Philod. de piet. fr. c. 13, ἐν δὲ
τῷ δευτέρῳ τά τε εἰς "Opdéa καὶ Μουσαῖον ἀναφερόμενα καὶ τὰ παρ᾽
Ὁμήρῳ. καὶ Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ Ἐϊριπίδῃ καὶ ποιηταῖς ἄλλοις, ὡς καὶ Κλεάνθης,
πειρᾶται συνοικειοῦν ταῖς δόξαις αὐτῶν.

=

a en
, ν

THE SOURCES 421

Intelligible World. It is, however, to Simplicius more
than any one else that we owe the preservation of the frag- Ὁ
ments. He had, of course, the library of the Academy at
his disposal.

B.—DOXOGRAPHERS

6. The Doxographi graect of Professor Hermann Diels The Doxo-
. (1879) threw an entirely new light upon the filiation of the ©” ee
later sources ;; and we can only estimate justly the value of
statements derived from these if we bear constantly in mind
_ the results of his investigation. Here it will only be possible

to give an outline which may help the reader to find his way

in the Doxographi graeci itself.

7- By the term doxographers we understand all those The
writers who relate the opinions of the Greek philosophers, Thee
and who derive their material, directly or indirectly, from the
great work of Theophrastos, @voixdv δοξῶν ιη (Diog. v. 46).
Of this work, one considerable chapter, that entitled [epi
αἰσθήσεων, has béen preserved (Dox. pp. 499-527). And
Usener, following Brandis, further showed that there were
important fragments of it contained in the commentary of
Simplicius (sixth cent. a.D.) on the First Book of Aristotle’s
Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις (Usener, Analecta Theophrastea, pp. 25 544.)
These extracts Simplicius seems to have borrowed in turn
from Alexander of Aphrodisias (¢. 200 a.D.); cf. Dox. p. 112
sqq. We thus possess a very considerable portion of the
First Book, which dealt with the dpyaé, as well as practically
the whole of the last Book.

From these remains it clearly appears that the method of
Theophrastos was to discuss in separate books the leading
topics which had engaged the attention of philosophers from
Thales to Plato. The chronological order was not observed ;
the philosophers were grouped according to the affinity of their
doctrine, the differences between those who appeared to agree
most closely being carefully noted. The First Book, however,
was in some degree exceptional ; for in it the order was that of
the successive schools, and short historical and chronological
notices were inserted. ᾿

Yoxographers,

he Placita ᾿
nd Stobaios.

atios.

422 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

8. A work of this kind was, of course, a godsend to the
epitomators and compilers of handbooks, who flourished more
and more as the Greek genius declined. These either
followed Theophrastos in arranging the subject-matter under
heads, or else they broke up his work, and rearranged his
statements under the names of the various philosophers to
whom they applied. This latter class form the natural
transition between the doxographers proper and the biographers,
so I have ventured to distinguish them by the name of |
biographical doxographers.

I. DoxOGRAPHERS PROPER

9. These are now represented by two works, viz. the
Placita Philosophorum, included among the writings ascribed
to Plutarch, and the Zclogae Physicae of John Stobaios (c. 470
A.D.). The latter originally formed one work with the Mor7-
legium of the same author, and includes a transcript of some
epitome substantially identical with the pseudo-Plutarchean
Placita. It is, however, demonstrable that neither the Placita
nor the doxography of the £c/ogae is the original of the
other. The latter is usually the fuller of the two, and yet
the former must be earlier; for it was used by Athenagoras
for his defence of the Christians in 177 A.D. (Dox. p. 4). It
was also the source of the notices in Eusebios and Cyril, and
of the History of Philosophy ascribed to Galen. From these
writers many important corrections of the text have been
derived (Dox. pp. 5 sqq.).

Another writer who made use of the /Vacifa is Achilles
(not Achilles Tatius). Extracts from his Εἰσαγωγή to the
Phaenomena of Aratos are included in the Uvranologion of
Petavius, pp. 121-164. His date is uncertain, but probably
he belongs to the third century a.p. (Dox. p. 18).

το. What, then, was the common source of the Placita and
the Zclogae? Diels has shown that Theodoret (¢ 445 A.D.)
had access to it; for in some cases he gives a fuller form of
statements made in these two works. Not only so, but he
also names that source ; for he refers us (Gv. aff. cur. iv. 31)

THE SOURCES 423

to ’Aeriov τὴν περὶ ἀρεσκόντων συναγωγήν. Diels has accord-
ingly printed the Placita in parallel columns with the relevant
parts of the Zclogae, under the title of “εἰ Placita. The
quotations from “ Plutarch” by later writers, and the extracts
of Theodoret from Aetios, are also given at the foot of each

page.

11. Diels has shown further, however, that Aetios did not
draw directly from Theophrastos, but from an intermediate
epitome which he calls the Vetusta Placita, traces of which
may be found in Cicero (infra, § 12), and in Censorinus (De
die natalt), who follows Varro. The Vetusta Placita were
composed in the school of Poseidonios, and Diels now calls
them the Poseidonian ᾿Αρέσκοντα (Uber das phys. System des
Straton, p. 2). There are also traces of them in the “ Homeric
Allegorists.”

It is quite possible, by discounting the somewhat unin-
telligent additions which Aetios made from Epicurean and
other sources, to form a pretty accurate table of the contents
of the Vetusta Placita (Dox. pp. 181 sqq.), and this gives
us a fair idea of the arrangement of the original work by
Theophrastos.

12. So far as what he tells us of the earliest Greek philo-
sophy goes, Cicero must be classed with the doxographers,
and not with the philosophers ; for he gives us nothing but
extracts at second or third hand from the work of Theophrastos.
Two passages in his writings fall to be considered under this
head, namely, “ Lucullus” (Acad. ii.), 118, and De natura
Deorum, i, 25-41.

(a) Doxography of the “ Lucullus.”—This contains a meagre
and inaccurately-rendered summary of the various opinions
held by philosophers with regard to the ἀρχή (Dox.
pp. 119 sqq.), and would be quite useless if it did not in one
case enable us to verify the exact words of Theophrastos
(Chap. I. p. 52, #. 2). The doxography has come through
the hands of Kleitomachos, who succeeded Karneades in the
headship of the Academy (129 B.c.).

(ὁ) Doxography of the “De natura Deorum.”—A fresh light
was thrown upon this important passage by the discovery at

The Vetusta
Placita.

Cicero.

Hippolytos.

The Stro-
mutets.

‘* Diogenes
Laertios.”

424 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Herculaneum of a roll containing fragments of an Epicurean
treatise, so like it as to be at once regarded as its original.
This treatise was at first ascribed to Phaidros, on the ground
of the reference in ZPp. ad Aft. xiii. 39. 2; but the real title,
Φιλοδήμου περὶ εὐσεβείας, was afterwards restored (Dox. p. 530).
Diels, however, has shown (Dox. pp. 122 sqq.) that there is
much to be said for the view that Cicero did not copy
Philodemos, but that both drew from a common source (no
doubt Phaidros, Περὶ θεῶν) which itself went back to a Stoic
epitome of Theophrastos. The passage of Cicero and the
relevant fragments of Philodemos are edited in parallel
columns by Diels (Dox. pp. 531 sqq.).

II. BIoGRAPHICAL DOXOGRAPHERS

13. Of the “ biographical doxographies,” the most important
is Book I. of the Refutation of all Heresies by Hippolytos.
This had long been known as the Pizlosophoumena of Origen ;
but the discovery of the remaining books, which were first
published at Oxford in 1854, showed finally that it could not
belong to him. It is drawn mainly from some good epitome
of Theophrastos, in which the matter was already rearranged
under the names of the various philosophers. We must note,
however, that the sections dealing with Thales, Pythagoras,
Herakleitos, and Empedokles come from an inferior source,
some merely biographical compendium full of apocryphal
anecdotes and doubtful statements.

14. The fragments of the pseudo-Plutarchean Stromatets,
quoted by Eusebios in his Praeparatio Evangelica, come from
a source similar to that of the best portions of the P/zloso-
phoumena. So far as we can judge, they differ chiefly in two
points. In the first place, they are mostly taken from the
earliest sections of the work, and therefore most of them deal
with the primary substance, the heavenly bodies and the earth.
In the second place, the language is a much less faithful
transcript of the original.

15. The scrap-book which goes by the name of Diogenes
Laertios, or Laertios Diogenes (cf. Usener, Zficurea, pp. 1 sqq.),

THE SOURCES 425

contains large fragments of two distinct doxographies. One
is of the merely biographical, anecdotic, and apophthegmatic
_kind used by Hippolytos in his first four chapters; the
other is of a better class, more like the source of Hippolytos’
remaining chapters. An attempt is made to disguise this
“contamination” by referring to the first doxography as a
“summary ” (κεφαλαιωδής) account, while the second is called
“particular ” (ἐπὶ μέρους).

16. Short doxographical summaries are to be found in
_Eusebios (2. Z. x., xiv., xv.), Theodoret (G7. aff: cur. ii. 9-11),
Irenzeus (C. Aaer. ii. 14), Arnobius (Adv. nat. ii. 9), Augustine
(Civ. Dei, viii. 2). (These depend mainly upon the writers of
** Successions,” whom we shall have to consider in the next
section. )
C.—BIOGRAPHERS

17. The first to write a work entitled Swccessions of the
Philosophers was Sotion (Diog. ii. 12; ΒΕ. P. 4 a), about
200 B.c. ‘The arrangement of his work is explained in Doz.
p. 147. It was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos. Other
writers of Acadoyai were Antisthenes, Sosikrates, and Alexander.
All these compositions were accompanied by a very meagre
doxography, and made interesting by the addition of un-
authentic apophthegms and apocryphal anecdotes.

18. The’ peripatetic Hermippos of Smyrna, known as
Καλλιμάχειος (¢c. 200 B.C.), wrote several biographical works
which are frequently quoted. The biographical details are
very untrustworthy indeed; but sometimes bibliographical
information is added, which doubtless rests upon the Πένακες
of Kallimachos.

19. Another peripatetic, Satyros, the pupil of Aristarchos,
wrote (c. 160 B.c.) Lives of Famous Men. ‘The same remarks
apply to him as to Hermippos. His work was epitomised by
Herakleides Lembos.

20. The work which goes by the name of Laertios
Diogenes is, in its biographical parts, a mere patchwork of all

Patristic \dox«
graphies.

Successions.

Hermippos. —

Satyros.

‘* Diogenes —

426 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

earlier learning. It has not been digested or composed by
any single mind at all. It is little more than a collection
of extracts made at haphazard, possibly by more than one
successive possessor of the MS. But, of course, it contains
much that is of the greatest value.

D.—CHRONOLOGISTS

Pras oathenes 21. The founder of ancient chronology was Eratosthenes

ee: of Kyrene (275-194 B.c.); but his work was soon supplanted
by the metrical version of Apollodoros (¢c. 140 B.c.), from
which most of our information as to the dates of early
philosophers is derived. See Diels’ paper on the Xpovixd of
Apollodoros in hein. Mus. xxxi.; and Jacoby, Apollodors
Chrontk (1902).

The method adopted is as follows :—If the date of some
striking event in a philosopher’s life is known, that is taken as
his floruit (ἀκμή), and he is assumed to have been forty
years old at that date. In default.of this, some historical era
is taken as the floruit. Of these the chief are the eclipse of
Thales 586/5 B.c., the taking of Sardeis in 546/5 B.c., the
accession of Polykrates in 532/1 B.c., and the foundation of
Thourioi in 444/3 B.c. Further details will easily be found
by reference to the Index, s.v. Apollodoros.

INDEXES

I. ENGLISH

Aahmes, 22, 46

Abaris, 87, 97 2. 3

Abdera, school of, 381

Abstinence, Orphic and Pythagorean,
102 sq., 104 sq. ; Empedoklean,
289

Academy, 35

Achilles and the Tortoise, 367

Aether. See αἰθήρ

Aetios, App. § το

Aigospotamos, meteoric stone of, 292,
312, 413 sq.

Air, 77, 78, 79 ”. 1, 120, 173, 214,
224, 263, 309, 336, 341, 411 sq.
See ἀήρ

Akousmata, 105 sq., 328

Akousmatics, 96, 103

Akragas, 228 sqq.

Akron, 231

Alexander Aetolus, 295

Alexander Aphrodisiensis, 139, 209

Alkidamas, 229 71. 1, 231 71. 5, 235;
297 2. 5, 321 2. 2, 360

Alkmaion, 123 71. I, 223 sq., 236,
327, 344, 350

Amasis, 39

Ameinias, 193

Anaxagoras, 290 sqq.; and Perikles,
294 sqq.; and Euripides, 295;
relation to Ionic school, 292 ; and
Zeno, 362

Anaxagoreans, 35 #. 3, 415

Anaximander, 52 sqq.

Anaximenes, 75 566. ; School of, 83,
292, 408 n. 2

Androkydes, 328

Andron of Ephesos, 93

Animals, Anaximander,
Empedokles, 279 sqq.; Anaxa-
goras, 315 sqq.; Diogenes of
Apollonia, 414

Antichthon, 344, 349 sqq.

72 qq. ;

Antonius Diogenes, 92

Apollo Hyperboreios, 93 #. I, 97
nN. 3, 232

Apollodoros, App. ὃ 21, 43, 52, 75,
94 1. 2, 125, 143, 192 Sq., 228 sq.,
290 sq-, 358, 370

Apollonios of Tyana, 90, 92

Apophthegms, 51, 127

Archelaos, 415 sqq.

Archippos, 99, 319

Archytas, 110, 319, 328, 346

Aristarchos of Samos, 349

Aristeas of Prokonnesos, 87, 97 #. 3

Aristophanes, 75, 296 2. 4, 381, 408

Aristotle, App. § 2; on Egypt, 18,
23; on Thales, 47 sqq., 50; on
Anaximander, 57 564. ; on Pytha-
goras, 93 2.1, I00, 107 #. 3;
on Xenophanes, 137 sq., 139 56. ;
on Herakleitos, 160 #. 1, 162,
177, 179; on Parmenides, 193,
203, 207, 208, 213; on Alkmaion,
223; on Empedokles, 177 %. 2,
228 #. 3, 231 2. 4, 234, 237, 253
n. 2, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 271,
272, 274 m. I, 278, 280, 281, 397
m.2; on Anaxagoras, 263 #. 3,
291, 303, 305, 306, 309, 310; On
the Pythagoreans, 100 #. I, 110,
III ”. I, 110, 331 566., 353 $99;
on Zeno, 361, 365 sqq.; on Melissos,
374 we 377: 378 ; pedeesigcicsy
380, 385 Sq., 357, 397 ™ Ti
Hippon, 49 #. 2, 406 ; on the .
levis, 74 κι x; on the theoretic life,
90, 108; on the mysteries, 91

[Aristotle] de Mundo, 185

[Aristotle] de Plantis, 279 π. 2, 298
nm. 2, 315

Aristoxenos on Pythagoras, 92, 94
n. 1,95, 96”. 2, 3, 98 Sq., 102, TOO
m. 2; on the Pythagoreans, 107,

.

427

428 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

319, 334, 353; Πυθαγορικαὶ ἀπο-
φάσεις, 100 7”. 2, 325; On Hippon,
406 z. 1; on Plato, 323 sqq.

Arithmetic, Egyptian, 22, 111 ”. 2;
Pythagorean, 109 sq.

Arithmetical symbolism, 111

Astronomy, Babylonian and Greek,
25 sqq. See Heavenly bodies,
Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars, Earth,
Eclipses, Geocentric and Helio-
centric hypothesis

Atheism, 51, 75, 141

Athens, Parmenides and Zeno at,
192; Anaxagoras at, 294

Atomism. See Leukippos

Atoms, 387 sqq.

Babylonian language, 21 22. 1; astro-
nomy, 25 566. ; eclipse cycle, 41;
μαθηματικοί, 350 2. 3

Beans, 102

Biology. See Animals, Plants

Blood, Empedokles, 286, 288;
Diogenes of Apollonia, 414

Brain, Alkmaion, 224; Empedokles,
235; Sicilian school of medicine,
288 2. 3

Breath. See Respiration. Breath of
the World, 79, 120

Cave, Orphic, 257 2. 1

Chaos, 8, 9 2. 1

Chronos, 10

Cicero, App. § 12; on Thales, 50;
on Anaximander, 64; on Anaxi-
menes, 82; on Parmenides, 220,
221 m.1; on Atomism, 393 71. 2,
394 %. 2

Clement of Alexandria, 19

Comic poets on Pythagoreans, 103
mn. 2

Condensation. See Rarefaction

Conflagration. See ἐκπύρωσις

Continuity, 369,

Copernicus, 349

Corporealism, 15 Sq., 206, 227, 357, 377

Cosmogonies, 8 sqq.

Croesus, 28, 37, 38

Culvasitras, 24

Damasias, 43 71. 2

Damaskios, 9 71. 4, 232

Darkness, 79, 121, 173, 214

Death, MHerakleitos, 171 sqq. ;
Parmenides, 222; Alkmaion, 225 ;
Empedokles, 283

Dekad, 113

Demetrios Phalereus, 290, 408

Demokritos, 2 7.1; date, 381; on

Egyptian mathematics, 24; on
Anaxagoras, 291, 381; primitive
astronomy of, 345, 392; and
Leukippos, 381

Diagonal and Square, 116

Dialectic, 361

Dikaiarchos on Pythagoras, 92, 96
2%. 3, 100

Diogenes of Apollonia, 381, 407 sqq.

Divisibility, 304, 306, 362, 365, 376

Dodecahedron, 341 sqq.

Doric dialect, 325, 327 56.

Earth, a sphere, 26; Thales, 47 sqq. ;
Anaximander, 70, 72; Anaximenes,
80, 81, 83 3.2; Xenophanes, 136 ;
Anaxagoras, 313; Pythagoreans,
344 sqq.; Leukippos, 4or; Dio-
genes of Apollonia, 413

Echekrates, 343

Eclipses, Thales, 40 sqq.; Anaxi-
mander, 67; Anaximenes, 82;
Herakleitos, 164; Alkmaion, 224 ;
Empedokles, 276; Anaxagoras,
299; Pythagoreans, 349 sq.;
Leukippos, 401

Ecliptic. See Obliquity

Effluences. See ἀπορροαί

Egypt, 39; Thales in Egypt, 43;
Pythagoras and Egypt, 94 sq.-

Egyptian arithmetic, 22 sq.; geo-
metry, 23 sq., 44 56.

Ekphantos, 338 2. 1, 387 2. 2

Elea, era of, 125 22. 4, 127, 192

Eleatics (see Parmenides, Zeno,
Melissos), 35 . 2; Leukippos and,
382 sqq.

Elements (see στοιχεῖα, Roots, Seeds,
ἰδέα, εἶδος, μορφή), 56 ”. τ, 57,
59, 235, 263 564., 265 %. 3, 339
564.

Eleusinia, 86

Embryology, Parmenides, 203 2. I;
Empedokles, 282

Empedokles, 227 566. ; relation to
Leukippos, 236, 383, 392; on
Xenophanes, 138, 246 ”.2; on
Pythagoras, 232, 259 2.1; on
Parmenides, 239, 261

Ephesos, 143 sqq.

Epicurus and Leukippos, 380 sq.,
388 2. 1, 301 2. I, 394 Sq.

Epimenides, 9, 87

Equinoxes, precession of, 25, 347
m. 2

Eratosthenes, App. § 21, 228 7. 2

Eros, 9, 219

Euclid, 116, 117

Eudemos on Thales, 44 sq.; on

INDEX | 429

Pythagoras, I15 22. 3, 116 7. 2;
on Parmenides, 203 ”. 2; on Zeno,
363, 366 m. 2; on the term
στοιχεῖον, 263 7. I

Eudoxos, 118, 216, 342

Eukleides of Megara, 355

Euripides (fr. inc. 910), 12 %. 1,
14 2.2; and Anaxagoras, 295 sq.

Eurytos, 110 sq., 320, 322

Eusebios, 19

Euthymenes, 44

Even and Odd, 333 sqq.

Evolution, Anaximander, 73 sq. ;
Empedokles, 281; Anaxagoras, 315

Examyes, 40

_ Experiment, 31 sq., 274

Figures, numerical, 110 sq., 337
Fire, 121, 160 sq., 215

Fire, central, 218, 344 sqq.
Forgeries, 46, 113 7. 1, ans
Fossils, 136

Galen, 234
Galeus levis, 74 2.1
Geocentric hypothesis, 31, 123, 218

Geometry, Egyptian, 23 sq.; of

Thales, 45 sq.; of Pythagoras,
115 sq.

Glaukos of Rhegion, 228 z. 3

Gnomon (the instrument), 31 7., 53

Gnomon (in geometry and arith-
metic), 114 7. 1

Gods, Thales, 50; Anaximander, 64,
74; Anaximenes, 82; Xenophanes,
140 sq.; Herakleitos, 188 sq. ;
Empedokles, 264, 272, 288 sq. ;
Diogenes of Apollonia, 410 2. 1

Gorgias, 229 7”, 1, 231, 234, 256
m. 1, 287 2.5, 417

Great Year, 25, 175

Harmonics, 118

‘*Harmony of the Spheres,”’ 122,
351. See ἁρμονία and Soul

Harpedonapts, 24, 116

Hearing, Empedokles, 285; Anaxa-
goras, 317

Heart, 235, 288 2. 3

Heavenly bodies, Anaximander, 66
5646. ; Anaximenes, 80, 81; Pytha-
goras, 122 56. ; Xenophanes, 133
sqq.; Herakleitos, 165 sqq. ;
Parmenides, 215; Empedokles, 274
sq.; Anaxagoras, 312; Leukippos,
401; Diogenes of Apollonia, 413

Hekataios, 20, 44, 46, 53

Heliocentric hypothesis, 27, 347 ”. 3,
348 sq.

Herakleides of Pontos, on Pythagoras,
104, 105, 108, 321 2. 2, 387
nm. 2; on Empedokles, 228 z. 2, 3,
233 7. 3, 236 2. 5; heliocentric
hypothesis of, 349

Herakleiteans, 35 7. 1, 140, 417

Herakleitos, 143 sqq.; on Homer,

182, 185; on Pythagoras, 94, 107,
143; on Xenophanes, 143

Hermodoros, 143

Herodotos, on Homer and Hesiod,
8; on Egyptian influence, 17;
on geometry, 23; on Orphicism,
95 ”. 1; on Solon, 28; on Lydian
influence, 38; on Thales, 38, 39,
40, 43 sq., 46; on Pythagoras,
93, 94 %. I, 95 %. 1, 2, 107

Hesiod, 6 sqq.

Hieron, 125

Hippasos, 103 ”. I, 117, 121, 156,
215, 341, 343, 354

Hippokrates, 235 2. 3, 405 3. 2,
411 2. 3; Περὶ ἀέρων ὑδάτων
τόπων, 79 2. I

[Hippokrates] Περὶ διαίτης, 167 7. 2,
183 2. I, 305 ”.6, 307 5.1, 405
nm. ἃ

Hippokrates, lunules of, 343

Hippolytos, App. § 13, 156

Hippon of Samos, 49, 58 ”. 2, 406

546.
Hippys of Rhegion, 121 31. 5
Homer, 5 566.
Hylozoism, 15
Hypotenuse, 116

Iamblichos, V. Pyth., 92 π. 2

Ibykos, 220 31. 3

Idaios of Himera, 58 7. 2, 407

Ideas, theory of, 354 sqq.

Immortality, ΟἹ, 172 Sq., 225

Incommensurability, 116 sq.

Indian philosophy, 21. See Trans-
migration

Infinity, Anaximander, 59 566.;
Xenophanes, 137 54. ; Parmenides,
207; Melissos, 375. See Divisi-
bility, ἄπειρον -

Injustice, 56, 71, 160, 226

Tonic dialect, 327 sq., 408

Justice, 32, 161 πὶ

Kebes and Simmias, 320, 343. 354.
355

Kebes, Πίναξ, 194

Kratinos, 406

Kratylos, 417

Kritias, 288 2. 3

i ii

430 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Kroton, 95 2. 4, 222
Kylon, 97 2. 2, 98

Lampsakos, 297, 415

Leukippos, 380 sqq.; and _ the
Eleatics, 382, 384 sqq.; and
Empedokles, 236, 383, 392; and
Anaxagoras, 383 sq., 392; and
the Pythagoreans, 387, 389, 392;
and Demokritos, 381, 389 sqq.,
401 2.5

Light, Empedokles, 276. See Moon

Lightning and Thunder, 68, 70,
401 2. 5

Limit, 121, 215, 333 566.

Lives, the three, 108, 109 ”. 1, 154

n. 3

Love. See Eros, Love and Strife,
266 sqq.

Lucretius, on Empedokles, 237; on
Anaxagoras, 306 7. I

Lydia, 37 sqq.

Lysis, 99, 319, 326

Man, Anaximander, 73; Herakleitos,
168 sqq.

Maoris, 9

Map, Anaximander’s, 53

Materialism, 208

Matter. See ὕλῃ

Measures, 167 sq., 181, 410, 413

Medicine, history of, 222, 225, 226,
234, 236, 265 sq., 288 2. 3, 322,
344, 405, 411, 414

Megarians, 355

Melissos, 369 sqq.

Melissos, Xenophanes and Gorgias,
138 sqq.

Menon, ᾿Ιατρικά, 49 2. I, 235 2. 2,
322 2. 2, 327 2. 5, 340 2.1, 406
Σ, 1

Metapontion, 95 #. 5, 97 3. 3

Metempsychosis. See Transmigration

Meteorological interest, 49, 70

Miletos, 37 sqq., 76, 380, 382

Milky Way, 69, 220, 314

Milo, 99, 222

Mochos of Sidon, 19 2. 3

Monism, 206, 227

Monotheism, 141 sqq.

Moon, 68; light of, 202 7.1, 275,
276, 299, 314

Motion, eternal, 15, 61; denied by
Parmenides, 207; explained by
Empedokles, 267; Anaxagoras,
309; criticised by Zeno, 366;
denied by Melissos, 376; re-
affirmed by Leukippos, 392 sq.

Mysteries, 90, 190

Necessity. See ᾿Ανάγκη

Nikomachos, 92, 112 71.

Nile, 43 sq., 313

Noumenios, 19

Nous, 309 sq.

Numbers, Pythagorean, 331 566. ;
triangular, square, and oblong, 114

Obliquity of the ecliptic (zodiac), 52,
82, 401

Observation, 29 sq., 73 Sq.

Octave, 118

Opposites, 56, 186 sq., 225, 235,
266, 305

Oriental influences, 17 sqq.

Orphicism, 5, 9 sqq., 87 sq., 95
mI, I0Q9 m.1I, 104, 221, 232,
257 2.1, 2582.1

Parmenides, 192 sqq.; on Herak-
leitos, 143, 198 2. 4, 204 Sq., 210;
and Pythagoreanism, 210 sqq.

Pausanias, 234 2. 3, 238

Pentagram, 343

Perception, Parmenides, 202 z. 2,
222; Alkmaion, 223 sq. ; Empe-
dokles, 284 sq.; Anaxagoras,
316 sq.; “Leukippos, 401 sq. ;
Diogenes of Apollonia, 414

Perikles and Zeno, 193; and Anaxa-
goras, 294 sq. ; and Melissos, 369

Petron, 65, 121

Pherekydes of Syros, 9, 87

Philistion, 234 . 3, 235 #.1 and 2,
266 2. 1, 288 2. 3, 3562.2

Philo of Byblos, 19 2. 3

Philo Judaeus, 18, 158, 185

Philodemos, 50 22. 4, 64, 221 ”. 1

Philolaos, 319, 320 sqq.

Philosophy as κάθαρσις, 89; Pytha-
gorean use of the word, 89 sqq.,
194, 321 2.2, 359; Synonymous
with asceticism, 18

Phleious, 89 2. 2, 94 2.1, 109 2.1,
320

Phoenician influence, 18, 19 2. 3, 39

Physiology, Parmenides, 221 sq. ;
Alkmaion, 223 ; Empedokles, 282 ;
Diogenes of Apollonia, 411

Pindar, 232

Planets, names of, 26 3.1, 220;
distinguished from fixed stars, 26,
82, 276, 392, 401; motion of,
I22 sq., 225, 350, 353; system
of, 344 56.

Plants, Empedokles, 277 sq.;
Anaxagoras, 315 sq.

Plato, App. § 1; on Egyptians and
Phoenicians, 17, 20, 27 ”.1; on

INDEX

Egyptian arithmetic, 22; on schools
of philosophy, 35; on Pythagoras,
96 ”. 3; on Xenophanes, 140; on
Herakleitos, 140, 159, 162, 176,
178; on Herakleiteans, 161 7. 1,
188 2. 1; on Parmenides, 192,
207, 221; on Empedokles, 159,
178, 269 ~.1; On Anaxagoras,
291 2. 6, 295, 297 Sq., 309; On
Philolaos, 319; on Pythagoreans,
121, 124; on incommensurables,
117 71. 2; on Zeno, 192, 358, 360,
361 ; on Melissos, 379». 2; Phaedo,
89 3. 2, ΟἹ m 2, 108 wm. I, 109
m.1I, 172 m.2, 182 m. I, 320 Sq.,
342, 343, 345, 354; Cratylus, 417
m.3; Theaetetus, 117 n.1, 263
nm. I, 338 2.1, 417 2.3; Sophist,
356 5». τ, 358 2. 3; Politicus, 280
n.1; Parmenides, 358 . 2, 359,
360 sq.; Philebus, 323; Sym-
postum, 221, 281 n.1; Phaedrus,
295; Gorgias, 321; Meno, 234
n.4; Republic, 25 n.2, 90 71. 2,
177 ”.1, 216, 219 Sq., 352;

. Timaeus, ΟἹ .1, 79 %#.1, 113
%. 3, 118 m. 1, I2I, 122, 225,
287, 340, 342, 345 7.1, 346, 352,
396; Laws, 107 m. 4, 117 %. 2,
353

Pleasure and pain, Empedokles, 285 ;
Anaxagoras, 317

Pliny, 42, 52

Pluralism, 227 sqq., 357

Political activity of philosophers,
Thales, 46; Pythagoras, 96 sq. ;
Parmenides, 195; Empedokles,
230 sq. ; Zeno, 358

Polybios, 99 7. I

Polybos, 379

Polykrates, era of, 53 7. 3, 94

Pores, See πόροι

Porphyry, 92 ”. 3, 104 ”.1I, 257
n. 1

Poseidonios, 19 ”. 3, 81 ”. 1

Precession. See Equinoxes

Proclus, commentary on Euclid, 44,
115 ”.3

Proportion, 117 sq.

Protagoras, 188, 360

Purification. See καθαρμός, κάθαρσις

Pyramids, measurement of, 45. See
πυραμίς ~

Pythagoras, 91 sqq. ; forged writings,
325

'Pythagoreans, 212 sqq., 319 566.

Rarefaction and condensation,
sqq-, 163, 204, 403, 412

77

431

See
Gods,

Religion, 85 sqq., 189, 294.
Orphicism, Monotheism,
Sacrifice

Respiration, 235, 253 #. 2, 284

Rest. See Motion

Revolution, diurnal, 61, 274, 346 sq.

Rhegion, 99, 220 2. 3, 319

Rhetoric, 86, 234

Rhind papyrus, 22 sqq.

Roots, 263

Sacrifice, mystic, 104 7. 2 ; bloodless,
258 5. 4

Salmoxis, 93

Sanchuniathon, 19 2. 3

Sardeis, era of, 43 2. 1, 53, 75

Schools, 33 sqq., 293

Sea, Anaximander, 66, 70 sq. ; Em-
pedokles, 277; Anaxagoras, 313 ;
Diogenes of Apollonia, 413

Seeds, 306

Seqt, 23, 46

Seven Wise Men, 39, 46, 51

Sight, Alkmaion, 224 ; Empedokles,
284, 287 sq.; Anaxagoras, 316

Silloi, 129

Sleep, Herakleitos, 169 sq. ; Empe-
dokles, 283

Smell, Empedokles,
goras, 316

Sokrates, Parmenides and Zeno, ig2
sq., 358; and Archelaos, 415

Solids, regular, 328 sq., 340

Solon. See Croesus

Soul, 86, 91, 168, 225, 343, 414

| Space, 204, 207, 366, 389

Speusippos, 113 ”. 2; on Parmenides,
195; on Pythagorean numbers,
321, 336 2. 3

Sphere, Parmenides, 207 sq. ; Empe-
dokles, 262. See Earth, Eudoxos,
Harmony

Stars, fixed, 68, 80

Stoics, App. § 3, 157, 179 sq.

Strabo, 19 #. 3, 194, 195 ". 2

Strife, Herakleitos, 184; Empedokles,
266 sqq.

Sun, Anaximander, 68 ; Anaximenes,
80; Xenophanes, 134 sq.; Hera-
kleitos, 165 sq., 174 ; Empedokles,
274 Sq., 347 Sq. ; Anaxagoras, 314

285; Anaxa-

Taras, 97 #. 2, 319

Taste, Empedokles, 285 ; Anaxagoras,
316

Tetraktys, 113 566.

Thales, 39 sqq.

Theaitetos, 117, 329

Theano, 353

432

Thebes, Lysis at, 99, 320; Philolaos
at, 99

Theodoros of Kyrene, 117

Theogony, Hesiodic, 6 sqq.; Rhap-
sodic, 9 2. 4, 232

Theologians, τὸ

Theology. See Gods

Theon of Smyrna, 27 2. 1

Theophrastos, App. § 7; on schools,
33, 35, 52; on Prometheus, 39
m. 2; on Thales, 48; Anaxi-
mander, 54 sqq., 66; on Anaxi-
menes, 76 sqq. ; on Xenophanes,
126, 136, 137; on Herakleitos,
145, 156, 163 sqq. ; on Parmenides,
209, 213, 214, 218, 220; on
Empedokles, 229 3.1, 236,
267.Sq., 272 sqq., 278, 284; on
Anaxagoras, 291, 292, 293 . I,
313 sq., 316 sq. ; on Leukippos,
380 sq., 382, 384 sqq., 390 sqq.,
402; on Diogenes of Apollonia,
381, 407 sq., 412; on Hippon of
Samos, 406

Theoretic life, 291

Theron of Akragas, 229, 232

Thourioi, era of, 228

Timaios Lokros, 323 sqq.

Timaios of Tauromenion, 228 71. 2,
230, 233, 237 7.1

Timon of Phleious, 129, 324

Touch, Empedokles, 285; Anaxa-

, goras, 316

EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Transmigration, 95, IOI sqq., 124,
289 sq.
Triangle, Pythagorean, 24, 115

Unit, 337, 365

Void, Pythagorean, 120, 214, 224,
336, 383; Parmenides, 204, 207;
Alkmaion, 224; Atomist, 389 sq.

Vortex, Empedokles, 274; Anaxa-
goras, 311; Leukippos, 399 sqq.

Water, 48 sqq., 407

Weight, 394 sqq.

Wheels, Anaximander, 67 sq. ;
Pythagoras, 122; Parmenides, 215

Worlds, innumerable, Anaximander,
62 sqq.; Anaximenes, 82 sq. ;
Pythagoras, 121; Xenophanes,
136; Anaxagoras, 312; Diogenes
of Apollonia, 414; Archelaos, 417

Xenophanes, 124 sqq.; on Thales,
41; on Pythagoras, 124

Year. See Great Year

Zamolxis, 93

Zankle, 127 2. 1

Zeno, 358 sqq.; on Empedokles,
359; on Pythagoreans, 362

1. GREEK

ἀδικία, 56, 60, γι

ἀήρ, 79 2. I, 263, 264 ~. 1, 284 71. 2.
See Air

αἰθήρ, 263, 264 721. I, 312 71. 1

ἀκούσματα, 105 sq., 328

ἀκουσματικοί, 96, 103

᾿Ανάγκη, 219, 256 2. 1, 269

ἀναθυμίασις, 167 2. τ, 168 2. 3

ἀντέρεισις, 400

ἄντυξ, 216

ἄπειρον, 57 2. 1, 60 2. 2

ἄπνους, ἡ, 233 2. 3, 236 2. 5

ἀπορροαί, 236, 287 2. 5

ἀποτομή, 391 2. 1

ἀριθμητική dist. λογιστική, 23, IIT
nN. 2

ἁρμονία, 122, 158, 184
ἁρπεδονάπται, 24

ἀρχή, 13, 57
αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν, 355%. I

γαλεοί, 73 sq.
γόητες, τοῦ

δαίμων, 155 2. 2, 172 2. 2
διαστήματα, 65 2. 3

δίκη, 32, τότ m. τ

δίνη. See Vortex

διορίζω, 120 3. 2

εἶδος, 355, 388 2. 4
εἴδωλα, 403

εἶναι, 198 71. 1; τὸ ἐόν, 204 71. I
ἔκθλιψις, 397 2. τ
ἔκκρισις, 61

ἐκπύρωσις, 178 566.

ἐν, τὸ, 140, 363 2. 4, 377
ἐναντία. See Opposites
évigew, 139 2. I
ἐπίψαυσις, 400

ἐστώ, 330 2%. 3

INDEX 433

Θεός, 74. See Gods
θεωρία, 28, 108

ἰδέα, 235 #. 2, 263 2.1, 355, 3567. 2,
388 2. 4

ἶδος, 243 71. I, 249 71. 2

ἰσονομία, 225

ἐσορροπία, 398

ἱστορία, 14 2. I, 28, 107 ”. 1

καθαρμός, κάθαρσις, 88, 107 sq.

κεγχρίτης λόγος, 360 "1. I

κλεψύδρα, 253 1. 2, 254 7... I, 263,
309, 384

κληροῦχος, 219

κόσμος, 32, 148 31. 1, 182 2. 2

κρατέω, 310

λογιστική dist. ἀριθμητική, 23

λόγος, 146 2. 3, 148 3. 4, 152 21. I,
153 .1 and 2, 157; λόγος τοῦ
εἶναι, 355 ”. 1

μεσότης, 118

μετάρσια, 296 n. 5
μετεμψύχωσις, IOI 71. 2
μετενσωμάτωσις, LOI 71. 2
μετέωρα, 32

μορφή, 263 2. I, 356 2. 2

ὄγκοι, 338 2. I, 368 2. 2, 387 2. 2

ὁλκάς, 341 2. 2

ὁμοιομερῆ, 306

ὅμοιος, ὁμοιότης, 72 71. I

ὄργια, 88 2. 2

ὅρος, 115 71. 2

οὐρανός, 31, 140 2. 4; Aristotle's
πρῶτος οὐρανός, 177

4
PY or THE

Ο

ὙΔΈΣΑ τε ν

eiTy
UNIVE De EN

CALIFORNYZ

πάγος, 273 2. 1

παλιγγενεσία, IOI 71. 2

παλίντονος, 150 71. 2, 184

παλίντροπὸς, 150 71. 2, 198 2. 4

πανσπερμία, 307, 389

περιαγωγή, 63 71. 2

περιέχω, 60 m. 2, 1702. I

περίστασις, 63 2. 2

πίλησις, 77 2. I

πόροι, 224, 226 n. 3, 236, 269, 284
54., 383

πρηστήρ, 69 2. 2, 165

πυραμίς, 25 2. x

ῥαψῳδῶ, 127 2. 2
ῥοπή, 398

σῆμα σῶμα, 321

στασιῶται, 140 71. I

στέφαναι, 215

στοιχεῖον, 54 71. 3, 56 ". 1, 263 π.1,
265 γι. 3, 306, 333, 388 x. 3

συνοικειῶ, 157 2. 4

τετρακτύς, 113 Sq.
τροπαί, 67 1. 2, 174

L ὕλη, 57, 330 ". 3, 342”. 2

ὑπόθεσις, 33 2. I, 360 m. 5, 36: 2. 4
ὑποτείνουσα, 116 #. 1

φαινόμενα, σῴζειν Ta, 33 2. I

φιλοσοφία, φιλόσοφος, φιλοσοφῶ, 28.
See Philosophy

φύσις, 12 sq., 56, 388 2. 2 and 5

χώρα, 114 mM. I, 115 5. 2

Printed dy R. ἃ R. Crarx, Limiten, Edinburgh.

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